Thirteen vapes are thrown away every second in the UK – more than a million a day – leading to an “environmental nightmare”, according to research.
There has also been a rise in “big puff” vapes which are bigger and can hold up to 6,000 puffs per vape, with single use vapes averaging 600. Three million of these larger vapes are being bought every week according to the research, commissioned by Material Focus, and conducted by Opinium. 8.2 million vapes are now thrown away or recycled incorrectly every week.
From June 2025 it will be illegal to sell single-use vapes, a move designed to combat environmental damage and their widespread use by children. Vapes will only be allowed to be sold if they are rechargeable or contain a refillable cartridge.
But all types of vape contain lithium-ion batteries which are dangerous if crushed or damaged because they can cause fires in bin lorries or waste and recycling centres. These fires are on the rise across the UK, with an increase last year of 71% compared with 2022.
‘old school’ vapes are basically completely repairable, vaping was born out of DIY and so the big goofy ahh vapes have pretty minimal waste, coils are generally small and replaceable, and many of those big boi vapes feature what’s called an RTA which has a deck that allows manual rebuilding of the coil. The only waste with those is a bit of cotton and an inch of stainless steel wire.
Hell, I used for years, a purely mechanical vape that had no electronics and was completely regulated by the resistance of the coil. It was a tube with a single 18650 and pressing the bottom just made the connection on the battery.
No e-waste from that device, the consumables were very minimal, probably the lifetime of the waste of the entire device, including batteries and the device itself, fit inside a sandwich bag, and that would be using it for 5ish years.
There are very low waste options out there, it’s just people generally don’t like using them because they require slightly more effort, I think there is a balance between hobby level repairability and ease of use somewhere