this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Using the litter aspects of cigarettes as a reason to curb smoking has always been a tough one for me. Say someone quits smoking and takes up vaping. Now we have introduced plastic waste & to an extent e-waste in the form of batteries in the disposable vapes.
I don't have an answer to it but I have at least thought about how there is no 100% environmentally friendly alternative outside of smoking straight tobacco leaf in rolling papers.
The "disposable" vapes are a different issue that needs to be tackled. I'm pretty sure that a meaningful deposit (5 or 10 euros) and the obligation for every seller to accept returns would solve the problem.
It works for beer cans!
In my part of the US, we hardly ever see beer or soda containers in litter. We do see liquor bottles, wine bottles, and sports-drink bottles as litter. Guess which drink containers have a deposit and cash redemption and which don't?
The "bottle bill" works. It creates incentives for all sorts of people, from frugal homeowners to homeless folks, to collect and return containers. Applying it to other products that show up in litter would just make sense, especially dangerous ones like vape batteries or cartridges.
That is the most reasonable route. A "core charge" type of model where you get the addition fee waived if you bring in an old one.
Same scheme they use with car batteries and some auto parts. Although, some auto parts have a core charge as part of a dubious ploy to prevent the aftermarket from getting the headlight for duplication.
I'm not doubting you, but like, what r&d firm is gonna go, welp, this $50 core charge is too much for us, guess we won't do it.
I forget what Chevy it was, but they just released a new model and the $2,500 headlight came with a $500 core.
Source: I ordered it.
I mean smoking itself isn't environmentally friendly. You're taking all the nicotine and smashing it with oxygen, producing lots of carbon particulates including CO2 and CO - greenhouse gases. Yes, it's only a tiny amount, but you don't get that with vaping. With vaping you just extract whole molecules, rather than breaking things down, at least as long as the temperature is properly controlled.
A good vape should have next to no waste. The vape itself should not be disposable, and batteries should last a year minimum even with heavy use. That just leaves whatever container you get your liquid in, which wouldn't be hard to recycle. Alternatively you could use a dry herb vape, along with pipe tobacco - but if we're honest if you have a dry herb vape you're probably not putting tobacco in it. You're going to put in things like lavender and thyme, of course.
You can always ban disposable vapes? Requiring anyone that wants to vape to carry around those massive refillable batteries would do wonders to discourage people picking up the habit.
There are refillable vapes that aren't that size. Though you do throw away the coil/juice container.
Haven't seen one of em biguns in a while.