Disposable vapes are indefensible. Many, or maybe most, of them contain rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, but manufacturers prefer to sell new ones.
To make a point about how wasteful this practice is—and to also make a pretty rad project and video—Chris Doel took 130 disposable vape batteries (the bigger “3,500 puff” types with model 20400 cells) found littered at a music festival and converted them into a 48-volt, 1,500-watt e-bike battery, one that powered an e-bike with almost no pedaling more than 20 miles. You can see the whole build and watch Doel zoom along trails on his YouTube video.
Those little colored flavored vapes are IMHO one of the worst vapes. Once they’re done, there’s no replacing the flavor. I see them often at the rehab I work at. I’ve seen some with replaceable flavor cartridges, but those are also bad due to the excessive plastic waste.
I’m all for vapes as a means to quit, but they’re also excessively used as a means of maintaining the habit.
I’m not a vape user, but the model is the kind of thing that just makes me so angry.
In a world that makes sense:
- small, mostly metal vape chassis
- rechargeable, replaceable battery
- built-in glass reservoir with charging valve
- vape juice sold in medium to large recyclable cans with standard interface to the charging valve
In a world where Profit is God (the real world):
- disposable chassis
- disposable battery
- if it’s refillable at all, it’s via non-recyclable, mixed material, mostly plastic, proprietary cartridges and you can save 5% if you subscribe online for refills, 10% if you pay yearly, $5 credit if you refer a friend on social media using hashtag #smoovape
- probably gives you turbo cancer because the juice is made in a repurposed Freon plant that was inadequately converted and they just don’t answer the phone when the FDA or EPA call
We used to have a great vape market for those types of vapes. Since 2020 state and fed government has rinsed the market “for the kids” and basically created what we see now, a market of 98% disposable sold by overseas companies. Before that there were countless brands making batteries, tanks, etc. now a lot of smoke shops don’t even sell refillable vapes or liquid.
… What? I used to smoke a pack a day, now I just vape. I’ve never seen a smoke shop that doesn’t sell juice
My local shop has about 3 full 6 foot wide floor to ceiling bookcases of just disposables. Then there’s one shelf with one brand of juices and about 7 options.
I think part of it is something else - ease of use and ease of access.
The “world that makes sense” product exists already:
https://www.elementvape.com/box-mod-kitsWhile I was vaping I mixed my own liquids though, as the cost savings was immense and I could easily lower the nicotine mg/ml on my own until I quit it altogether.
Can’t buy nicotine from the wholesalers anymore to do that in the US. Feds made it illegal.
Yeah, they had started limiting what you could buy in Sweden as well. My last time mixing I bought a silly amount of 18mg/ml 10ml strong menthol bottles and large 70/30 PG/VG bottles and ended up with my own 3mg/ml mixture that still tasted menthol, although not as overwhelmingly so.
Stingy on letting you make your own vape but happy to let you stuff your lip with snus. Typical Sweden.
EU is behind the restrictions for vaping liquids, not Sweden. :)
https://health.ec.europa.eu/tobacco/product-regulation/electronic-cigarettes_en
You totally can. I don’t know exactly what the laws are because it’s intentionally not clear but it’s the same process as before, order from a diy website, it comes in the mail, make your stuff at home. I think the difference is that it’s harder for websites to get the license to sell it but there are still some sites out there.
I don’t vape nicotine, so those sorts of things are basically out of my reach. I wish I lived in a legal state and I could get liquid refill bottles.
Yeah tbh I’ve never really seen anyone successfully quit through vaping. Nicotine pouches or lozenges are much more effective imo.
I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions, but like you said, the vast majority of people vaping are just maintaining.
I did. It took a while because I enjoyed it so much, but it worked better than anything else. It simulated the smoking experience, tasted great and was a fun little device to tinker with. Sure it made me look stupid but in return I got healthier lungs.
Of course I was wrapping my own coils and used a mech mod, the concept of a juul made it so stupidly easy to vape without understanding how it works and just programmed everyone to use cartridges.
And here we are.
When used correctly to wean and taper, vaping can be really helpful as a quit smoking aid.
In my experience many of the people who haven’t quit are self medicating for attention or depressive reasons. Of the folks I know who vape about half were diagnosed with ADHD later in life (30+) and quit after finding a stimulant medication that worked for them. The rest are unmedicated and self medicating with nicotine and coffee or energy drinks. Self medicating is overlooked in virtually every discussion about nicotine and I’d like to see it considered more often when the topic comes up instead of just leaping straight to “nicotine use bad” or “nicotine users should be punished” like most discussions do.
Edit: there’s also some interesting research re: nicotine’s neuroprotective properties that gets lost in the prohibition fervor
Assuming non-wasteful delivery methods, I’d still call that a win as vaping is generally less harmful to the health of the user.
Quitting is of course preferable, but I support harm reduction policies in general
I know quite a few people that have quit through vaping, and even if they hadn’t, vapes are definitely better for their health than cigarettes.
I just started vaping more AND smoking because I could vape in my dorm during winter…
There’s peanut butter in my chocolate!
There’s CHOCOLATE in my peanut butter!!!
Disposable vapes will be banned in the UK starting in June 2025.
Based.
Hats off to the dude for not wasting the batteries. However, I would not want ass and balls near those cheap Chinese made lithium batteries.
Perhaps it’s odd, but I have never seen anyone use a vape in public. Nor have I seen one just lying on the ground. I maybe need to get out the forest here and visit civilization for a bit again.
They are super common where weed is legal. People fly into somewhere like Denver for the weekend to catch a show. Rather than buying a reusable battery, they will get a disposable vape (and probably some gummies).
Then it ends up in the landfill or as litter. I am in favor of making these one time use electronics illegal (along with single use plastics like balloons, plastic silverware, etc… but that is another thread)
They aren’t even disposable, so it’s crazy to me how they can be sold as such.
Yeah, I live in legal weed state. The nearest dispensary is a mere 20 miles away. I’m not even sure they sell vapes. Flower and edibles for sure, but I have no idea if they sell vapes. (I’ve never been there-- weed just ain’t my thing). But I still don’t see any used ones tossed out. Maybe we are just neater people here and don’t litter.
Despite the larger size and bright colors, they’re a bit more discreet than cigarettes. Most places that ban cigarettes equally ban vapes, so they’re often concealed more. That probably has a spillover effect to areas they’re allowed. They’re only activated when sucked, so, unlike a cigarette that’s burning whether you suck it or not, most people take a puff or 3 of vape and then go a few minutes without it. It’s not as obvious as a person deliberately smoking one whole cigarette.
But maybe they’re not around you. I think the other comments covered the locations well enough, sarcasm included. But if you suddenly smell something sweet like fruit or cereal, casually take a look for someone vaping
Oh I’ve seen pictures of them. Just haven’t seen one in the real world nor seen one tossed on the ground. I do suspect they just aren’t popular around me. Smokers around here probably prefer real cigarettes.
Eh, my coworker alternates between cigarettes and vape, and plenty of people vape or smoke in the parking lot here.
I’ve never seen a vape on the ground though, I think most at my office don’t use disposable vapes.
really? they’re almost as common as cigarette butts once were now. are you a hermit?
The basement has been good to me to.
I wouldn’t claim to be all that enamored of humans as a rule. But I’m not a hermit in the classic sense.
I’ve never seen a discarded vape, but I’ve seen a lot of people vaping, as well as a lot of cigarettes and butts. That said, I spend almost zero time downtown, so my exposure is mostly my work parking lot and a few stores.
I mean, yeah. Have you ever been outside?
I probably spend more time you side than you do. I just mostly do it in a forest.
I guess you’ll have to start spending more time in high school bathrooms.
I had that misfortune when I was teaching math at my local school for 4 years.
I so so want to purchase an ebike.But the companies don’t seem likely to stick around for long though.
You pretty much should only buy one from a shop that has a physical location near you and can do repairs. Like everybody around me sells Trek, so if I ever got one, it’d be a Trek with a Bosch motor. Bike shops will not repair ebikes they don’t sell, even though they’ll repair regular bikes. And neither Trek nor Bosch are going anywhere.
I see your point, but I also saw Juiced Bikes go out of business last month after 15 years in the industry.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The bikes are very simple and the battery pack can be rebuilt. Any decent bike shop should be able to repair an orphaned e-bike.
Most will not repair an ebikes outside of the brand they sell. I’d ask the shop first.
Perhaps where you live. I recently helped a young man get an e-bike, (somewhat mentally handicapped-- we raised funds to purchase the bike to get him to have better mobility), We got him an Aventon Cargo bike. The local bike shop plainly stated they would work on any e-bike you brought in. And that that all of the area bike shops were the same.
One does not turn away a paying customer.
In many parts of the states they do because their insurance won’t cover them working on those bikes.
That seems like a “you” problem at the polls in your state. Not an issue here.
My problem with Ebikes is the number of regular bikes stolen. No way I want to haul a ebike up and down my basement stairs a couple times a day.
I bought one from Aventon. It was easy to repair and didn’t require anything special.
Engwe has been around for some time, have one of their bikes (M20). If a part fails, you just need to send them an email, and they’ll give you a price and picture of the part and they’ll send it out to you. I have had to replace my rear fender and the front light once and they’ve arrived quite fast (to Europe). Although they aren’t high quality bikes, they’re priced accordingly.
I’m going to build one. Total cost will be >$1k for the mid drive motor and battery (not counting the bike itself), but it’ll be way faster than the street legal stuff they sell at stores. They’re dead simple since they’re just bikes with a motor and battery pack, so any shop could work on it.
If you want something cheaper, there are other simple retrofit options as well.
So? As long as they deliver the ebike, what do you care about the financial health of the company after that?
Damn, this warranty is still in effect for a few more weeks, and the company’s gone…
Support. Warranties. Replacement parts.
Proprietary spare parts. The motors might be off the shelf so you could grab parts from a different manufacturer. But controllers and batteries are usually proprietary making repairs much more complicated and cost-inefficient
sounds like a joke
On the other hand, I think cigarette butts are also quite polluting the environment too. So I am not sure what’s worse.
They make vape cartridges that are used with a reusable battery. If disposable vapes were banned, they would become the more common option which is definitely better.
Does it matter which is worse when we can take care of both problems?
No one ever talks about stopping cigarettes from being filtered. It’s not as if the filter actually makes cigarettes safe. They just make them easier on your lungs as you smoke and you’re less likely to get bits of tobacco in your mouth. Maybe that shouldn’t be a thing?
Filters could be made biodegradable. Batteries? Probably but not in our lifetime.
Or they could just not be made at all.
