Communities can't recycle or trash disposable e-cigarettes. So what happens to them?
Communities can't recycle or trash disposable e-cigarettes. So what happens to them?
Communities across the U.S. are confronting a new vaping problem: how to get rid of millions of disposable e-cigarettes that are considered hazardous waste.
For years, the debate surrounding vaping largely centered on its risks for high school and middle school students enticed by flavors like gummy bear, lemonade and watermelon.
But the recent shift toward e-cigarettes that can’t be refilled has created a new environmental dilemma. The devices, which contain nicotine, lithium and other metals, cannot be reused or recycled. Under federal environmental law, they also aren’t supposed to go in the trash.
U.S. teens and adults are buying roughly 12 million disposable vapes per month. With little federal guidance, local officials are finding their own ways to dispose of e-cigarettes collected from schools, colleges, vape shops and other sites.
Deposits work for my milk bottles they could work for vapes if you made them high enough. Also another barrier to kids accessing them if they have to pay a deposit every time.
Should just ban disposable vapes imo. They only get people into vaping, they don’t help quitting smoking cigarettes better that reusable vapes.
That'd be great except the FDA decimated the market outside of disposables. I now only have 1-2 shops in my (250k pop.) city selling juice, coils, mods, and batteries all with pretty limited selection and wildly high prices, where previously I could order from one of hundreds of companies online at dirt cheap prices. Most corner stores still have a full selection of cigarettes and disposables though.
People hate bans on things though; the hassle of being forced to properly dispose of the devices would be enough discouragement to lessen the amount of providers.
I can't see this working with disposables as you'd have people bringing in devices of unknown condition and piling them into a bin full of lithium batteries. That's how you wind up burning your store down.
Some stores have this now in the US via the Call2Recycle program from the RBRC. They were started to offer a convenient way to recycle NiCd batteries, but they take lithium batteries, and cell phones now as well. I've taken in batteries out of "disposable" vapes before (did the disassembly myself though, so they basically looked like any other small lithium battery). Definitely understand the concern about keeping a bin full of questionable batteries around while you wait for the box to be full enough to send in though, but there are plenty of stores where it's already a thing.
Sounds like an externality that should be paid for as these things are manufactured
Or indeed every thing that's manufactured
Maybe the gov't should set up regulations before allowing sales.
But that would make sense.
I'll tell you what happens to them: they get thrown in the trash. If we're lucky. These things are littered everywhere. Put a $2 deposit on each one and set up places to return them for the deposit return. They're disgusting. If that's not enough, increase the deposit. If people don't like it, at least it will drive them to use those stupid looking ones that look like someone's fellating a walkie-talkie.
I call mine a robot dick, thank you very much.
Man, disposable vapes are such an awful trend, I wish they were banned.
Make people buy a proper vape device and their own refills, ban those nasty e-waste fuckers alreadyPermanently Deleted
I don't have a solution for this. I vape, and have done for a while. It's just easier, cheaper, and nicer than smoking a stick. I've stuck with Smok products for the majority of it, and those use refillable tanks. Tanks were how it was always done, but now when I take a 'smoke' break, most of the adults have those stupid pods. I used one as a stop gap when my main device got lost on a trip and its corpse is still sitting on my desk. /rant