Guy makes “dodgy e-bike” from 130 used vapes to make point about e-waste
And yet, when you see Doel get 33 kilometers (about 20.5 miles) on his vape-powered ride, almost entirely without pedaling, hitting 32 miles per hour once, the point is made. We are tossing out a lot of battery materials that could be doing a lot of other things. Doel estimates his “dodgy bike” cost about $60 in filament and materials to piece together. Most of the cells are rated for a minimum of 300 cycles, which is both not a lot, but also more than some bikes and scooters actually take on.
Why are so many vape batteries thrown out?
Disposable vapes will be banned in the UK starting in June 2025. In the US, most disposable vapes, and a wide variety of other vape products that would lure in younger users, should be illegal, unless they’re one of 34 tobacco vape products approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But the FDA rule was targeted at pre-filled nicotine cartridges for reusable devices, like Juul, and left disposable models in a gray area. Into this vagary swept hundreds of brands and thousands of their products.
The FDA has occasionally issued warning letters, but disposable vapes can often wiggle their way past regulators through name changes, like Elf Bar has done. The Associated Press reported in June 2023 that more than 9,000 new vape products have appeared in the US since the FDA began requiring registration in 2020. That surge “has been almost entirely driven by Chinese-manufactured disposables,” Matthew Perrone at the AP writes.
The US Public Interest Research Group estimates 11.9 million disposable vapes were sold in the US in March 2023. Because liquid nicotine is classified by the EPA as a hazardous waste, e-waste recycling is mostly impossible. And because the devices contain lithium-ion batteries, they cannot easily be otherwise recycled, including for Drug Enforcement Agency buybacks. US PIRG suggests the lithium contained in each year’s wasted vapes in the US is about 23.6 tons, or enough for 2,600 electric vehicles.
