The Harm That Disposable Vapes Are Having on the Environment

Disposable vapes are the latest trend within the vaping world, with a large percentage of the 3.7 million adult vapers in the UK opting for these as their vape device of choice.

Whilst these vapes have great flavours, and are convenient to grab and go, people don’t realise just how harmful they are to the environment we live in today and are on course to create massive problems for landfills and the longevity of the environment we know and live in currently.

In this article, I’m going to discuss just what impact they have on the environment, and why the convenience factor should not outweigh the environmental factors that they are playing a massive part in.

Can disposable vapes be recycled?

The simple answer is no, they cannot be recycled. This is due to the fact that inside the sealed unit is a small lithium battery that is not suitable for recycling.

Therefore, when these cease to function, people are just throwing them in the bin and they’re going to landfill.

As I discussed in my previous article, A staggering million disposable vape units are put into landfill every week, which soon is going to start to cause a problem for landfill sites across the country.

How much lithium is wasted in these batteries?

As stated above, the batteries in these disposable vapes contain lithium.

Studies have shown that with 52 million disposables going in to landfill each year, this equates to 10,000kg of lithium going to waste! Lithium is used in a variety of different batteries, especially these days with Electric cars being so popular. To give an example, 10,000kg of lithium is enough to power 1200 electric cars! That’s some serious waste of resources don’t you think?

Plastic doesn’t decompose quickly

Scientific studies show that plastic can take up to 1000 years to degrade and decompose. Now just think how many disposables are being discarded into landfill, or on the street, and then think of them taking 1000 years to decompose, that is a lot of extra plastic harming the environment added to the 14 million tonnes already harming the environment and oceans in our world.

The contents are harmful to living creatures and organisms

Within a disposable vape is normally 1.3ml of vape juice, that doesn’t always all get used before the battery dies.

If these disposables are discarded in the street, which is a common sight these days, the vape juice could leak out of them and pose a risk to living creatures who may ingest the juice that contains nicotine.

If discarded into rivers or oceans, they can then contaminate the water that a lot of sea creatures use as a habitat and could impose a risk of ill health to them as well.

Add in the fact the battery acid could leak also, the harm to the environment, living creatures and their habitats is scary.

So while grabbing a disposable vape may be more convenient for you, think of the bigger picture and the harm they are doing to the environment that we all know and live in.

Opting for a refillable vape device is not only helping the environment from being harmed, but it is also much more cost effective than frequently buy these disposable vape devices.