Can you recycle your vapes?
Let’s talk about being an ECO friendly vaper. Did you know that the biggest source of plastic pollution in our oceans is cigarette butts? The ‘filters’ (inverted commas as they don’t actually filter anything) on traditional cigarettes are composed of Cellulose Acetate. This is a type of plastic that can take over a decade to decompose and over 5.6 trillion cigarettes with this type of filter are produced each year, with as many as two thirds irresponsibly disposed of.
That is potentially 1.8 TRILLION plastic cigarette butts working their way into the ocean each year.
So, before we go on it’s important to remember that vaping produces a fraction of the waste that smoking does, if you have stopped smoking and started vaping, you are already making the ECO friendly choice. A 20 a day smoker will alone produce around 620 cigarette butts a month. Multiply this by 7 million smokers and you potentially have nearly 4.5 billion a month in the UK alone! The average vaper over a month will use 2 – 3 coils and 5 – 10 10ml bottles of e-liquid* (Totally Wicked e-liquid bottles can be rinsed out and recycled.).
But how can you be a true ECO friendly vaper? It all comes down to good choices. Let’s take a look at 3 steps to help.
1. Recycle vape supplies
You can’t recycle everything, but there are some key things that can absolutely be recycled properly.
Batteries is one. There are two types of vaping battery, ones that can be removed from the e-cig, these tend to be 18650 or 21700 batteries. The others are built into the body of the e-cig and cannot be taken out without completely dismantling your vape.
All batteries have a life and will need to be replaced at some point. Once this time comes, you can recycle them. The removeable batteries can go into any battery bin. These can be found in supermarkets, recycling centres and Totally Wicked vape stores. Non-removeable batteries might not be able to go into all of these bins, so just drop these into one of our stores and we can recycle them for free. If in doubt with any of your batteries, just come in store and we can dispose of them properly for you.
There is some conflicting info when it comes to e-liquid bottles, so I can only talk about Totally Wicked products. If our e-liquid bottles are washed out properly, with lots of water to completely dilute any e-liquid that might be left, then all parts can be recycled.
2. Buy UK made
Most devices aren’t made in the UK, but when it comes to e-liquid, you can seriously reduce your ‘air miles’ by choosing e-liquid made in the UK.
There are so many great e-liquid manufactures in the UK now and there is so much choice available. Be careful of sneaky marketing and if in doubt ask the company where their e-liquid is produced.
Here at Totally Wicked all of our core ranges are UK made e-liquid, created and manufactured right here in Blackburn, Lancashire.
3. Choose a reusable e-cig
Let’s address the elephant in the room, disposable vapes.
These single use e-cigs have rocketed in popularity in the past 12 months and there are huge amounts on the market at the minute, with a new one available seemingly every week. We sell them here at Totally Wicked as well, we have our own disposable vape pen.
Disposables are designed to be used once, until the e-liquid runs dry, or the battery runs out of charge. They cannot be recharged or refilled and you cannot change the vape coils.
In terms of ultimate vaping convenience, disposables are the top dog. Great for a night out, in the car, holidays or in an emergency, also fab for trying vaping for the first time.
In terms of potential impact on the environment, disposables are the black sheep. They are all built in, nothing can be removed or replaced, this means that they can be difficult to recycle. They cannot be washed out and have a lithium ion battery. Now, we at Totally Wicked understand that these are not the most environmentally friendly way to vape. We have pledged to limit the impact by taking ANY brand of disposable vape and recycling them for you. So just drop them into one of our stores and we will sort them.
Now if you are a disposable vaper and want to limit your ECO impact and save tonnes of cash in the process, then switch to a traditional open tank vape. But do keep in mind, even when vaping disposables, you are having dramatically less impact on the environment than if you were smoking.
This was a look at ways to become an ECO friendly vaper. Remember if in doubt, talk to your vaping company. Ask them what they are doing to be more environmentally friendly.
*All numbers are estimates
