According to a study, the annual amount of lithium that ends up in landfills due to the disposal of disposable vape pens is over 10,000 kg.
According to researchers at University College London, organic solvents, nickel, and cobalt poisoning were seeping into surrounding rivers from the device’s battery waste.
Since 2021, disposable vaporizers have become incredibly popular in the UK; but, next year, ministers will be holding consultations to decide whether to outright outlaw the devices.
According to UCL, almost 1.3 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week.
Using the same methods as electric car battery research, researchers extracted batteries from disposable vape pens and evaluated them.
After that, they utilised microscopes to study the batteries and an X-ray to map out their interior composition.
The lithium-ion battery may be charged and drained up to 450 times, according to the UCL team’s findings.
The senior author of the study, Professor Paul Shearing of the Universities of Oxford and UCL Chemical Engineering, stated: “We were surprised by the results, which indicated the possible cycle life of these batteries. You can observe that you have more than 90% capacity retention for more than 700 cycles if you utilise a low charge and discharge rate. Actually, that battery is fairly decent. And these are simply being thrown away. On the side of the road, they are being thrown.
The public should, at the very least, be informed about the kinds of batteries used in these gadgets and how to dispose of them correctly. Manufacturers ought to encourage the recycling and reuse of e-cigarette batteries and shift their products to rechargeable ones by default.
Single-use vapes have been incredibly popular in the last several years. Our research has demonstrated that the lithium-ion batteries included within may be charged and discharged over 450 times, even though they are marketed as disposable. This piece draws attention to the massive waste of finite resources that throwaway vapes create.
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