• tal@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    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!”

    • ojmcelderry@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Big P@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        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

      • HelloThere@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • HelloThere@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • thehatfox@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • Syldon@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        There are a few shops that will now take electronic waste and manage it. I take all my old batteries etc to Currys.

      • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • FatLegTed@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            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 👍

        • ojmcelderry@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Ditto for London. I assume most local council recycling facilities accept small electrical waste.

  • adaveinthelife@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    The fact that vape companies seem to make their disposable offerings the only ones with the ‘good’ experience, while their reusable items are objectively inferior is a crime against environment.

  • Rogue@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    I’d be interested to know the proportion of people who know how electronic waste can be recycled. And how often the average person visits their local recycling center.

    I have dozens of items boxed up in need of disposal but I never find the time to research how, let alone making the journey to a recycling center

    • fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I know you can take them to the recycling centre, but I don’t have a car, so I just hoard them in a room in my house.

      Depending on the item, I sometimes hoard it in a different room, where I can fix it or dismantle it for useful components, if I ever had the time or inclination to do so.

      Fortunately though, once a year, our local council does a “put it on the street and we’ll take it” day, and they come and collect things and take them to the right place.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        We’ve got U-Haul in the US; one can rent a truck ranging from pickup sized up to tractor-trailer size. If the UK doesn’t have U-Haul, they’ll have some company that fills the same role.

        googles

        Yeah, they’re in the UK. Checking the prices at a random UK location, it looks like a pickup or cargo van runs $19.95 plus $0.59/kilometer. Though…you’d need to have a driver’s license or know someone who does. Hmm. That’s not something that comes up much over here, outside of maybe New York City.

        • fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, there’s plenty of car and van rental places - but yes, you need a driving licence for it.

          Note that I’m probably in the minority not being able to drive - I think almost half of the people I know have cars and licences these days - and that would be a far higher number in a more rural or wealthier area.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Almost half a billion small, cheap electrical everyday items from headphones to handheld fans ended up in landfill in the UK in the past year, according to research.

    The not-for-profit organisation Material Focus, which conducted the research, said the scale of the issue was huge and they wanted to encourage more recycling.

    This included 260m disposable vapes, 26m cables, 29m LED, solar and decorative lights, 9.8m USB sticks, and 4.8m miniature fans.

    Material Focus said that while people were used to the idea of recycling larger electrical items such as fridges, lots of smaller devices were left unused in houses.

    In the average UK home, the research found, there were four to five charging cables, two to three mobile phones, and two to three remote controls cluttering up cupboards.

    A Material Focus survey of 2,000 people found that every year, the average UK adult buys nine electrical items cheaply and throws away eight.


    The original article contains 455 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!