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.
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