Half a billion cheap electrical items go to UK landfills in a year, research finds
Research by Material Focus shows everyday items such as disposable vapes are a big contributing factor
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This included 260m disposable vapes
Material Focus said that when consumers bought a cheap item, they saw it as disposable.
"And so you disposed of the disposable vape? Why did you assume that that was the appropriate way to deal with it?"
"It was an innocent mistake! It could have happened to anyone!"
Exactly. The fact that "disposable" vapes even exist is mind-boggling. And now they account for more than half of the electrical waste going to landfill. 🤦🏻♂️
Why do they even exist? Can't they be banned?
It's like buying a USB battery pack to recharge your phone - and then chucking it out after it's run out.
Disposable vapes are actually made in a way where they would be fully reusable if they had a charging port and replacement cartridges available so it's not even anything but pure greed and laziness
It's like buying a USB battery pack to recharge your phone - and then chucking it out after it's run out.
You can actually buy that shit too! They sell them in petrol stations for god only knows what reason.
In the UK too?
I'm in the UK, commenting on an article in the UK sub, by a UK newspaper, so, yes 😁
Oh, whoops, didn't notice the sub 😳
Disposable vapes - ignoring all other issues with them for a second - shouldn't be going to landfill though. They are electronic waste and should be being dealt with appropriately.
The problem is that it's next to impossible to actually handle WEEE correctly even for occasional purchases like routers, hard drives, laptops, etc, so how on earth disposable vapes are meant to be appropriately disposed of is beyond me.
It's far easier for most people to just throw them in the bin though, and the past of least resistance is the one usually followed.
Even then, even if electronic waste handling was more accessible disposable vapes would still be an enormous additional volume of waste that doesn't need to exist in the first place.
There are a few shops that will now take electronic waste and manage it. I take all my old batteries etc to Currys.
Good to know, thanks!
The problem is that it's next to impossible to actually handle WEEE correctly even for occasional purchases like routers, hard drives, laptops, etc, so how on earth disposable vapes are meant to be appropriately disposed of is beyond me.
In South Wales, we can take anything like that to the local tip for free. Household batteries get put in a separate bag and put out with the recycling.
It wouldn't be worth the trip for one or two vapes, but a bag full wouldn't take a lot of space between trips.
You can do that for most of UK though, loads of places have a container for batteries, most supermarkets certainly do. People cannot be bothered.
Yep, we're on the same page. The person I replied to said that it's really hard to do, so I gave an example of how easy it is where I am 👍
Ditto for London. I assume most local council recycling facilities accept small electrical waste.