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.
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.