How to Correctly Dispose of a Vaping Device
To take my dog to the nice park in our area, we have to walk along a street for a couple blocks where the speed limit is pretty high and there aren’t houses along the street. This is a favorite place for people to toss stuff out of their car windows. I pick up a lot of trash to keep the neighborhood looking nice.
A few days ago on the dog walk I saw a shiny small object. It turned out to be a discarded vaping device.
I had never seen one of these devices up close before. I could tell it probably was not recyclable, because it is made from several different materials. Also, it had a switch on the bottom and another button, which indicated that it had a battery. I decided to learn about how to dispose of a vape and I’m glad I did!
Vaping devices like this one have a Lithium battery. So do Vape pens or e-Cigarettes. That means that if they aren’t disposed of properly, they can start a fire. ‘Dumpster Fire’ has kind of become a cliché term, but this could be the real deal.
I didn’t find a great deal on the web about disposal, but most sources indicated that the best way to get rid of these when they are empty is to take them to a Hazardous Waste Facility. We have one of those in our county and it is a free service. I went there today to drop off some other things, so I asked about the vape when I was at the counter. Apparently the proper disposal of vapes has become a big enough issue that they had printed flyers trying to educate people about it. They also confirmed that bringing all discarded vaping devices to their facility was the right thing to do.
Environmental Considerations for Vapes
Here are some things I learned from the flyer:
- If there is still liquid in the vape (they called it e-liquid), it can leak out of the device “causing hazardous chemicals to enter the environment”.
- None of the component of the vaping device is recyclable. They called out “cartridges and pods”. So do not put these devices in any of your recycling bins.
- Since the battery can start a fire, don’t put vapes in your trash bin or dumpster.
- When there is Nicotine in vape devices, they consider the Nicotine to be a hazardous waste item.
Types of vape related items that are accepted at a Hazardous Waste Facility:
- All vape devices: vaporizers, vape pens, e-cigarettes
- Cartridges and pods
- Vape Batteries
- E-liquid
The only safe way to dispose of these devices is to take them to a licensed Hazardous Waste facility.
Other Ideas for Reducing Vape Waste
- Shop only at Vape stores that have a disposal program. In my area it appears that many of the shops have this service.
- Consider buying refillable devices to reduce the amount and type of waste.
- Consider that if vaping is bad for the environment, vaping might be bad for your lungs.
It seems like the vaping industry continues to grow. Please encourage anyone you know that chooses to vape to at least seek out the proper way to dispose of them in your local community.
Hard to Recycle Items
One of the topics that I have a keen interest in is finding ways to recycle items that are very hard to keep out of the waste stream. Vapes are one example – for the simple fact that they are made up of many different materials: the plastic case, the battery, the tiny bit of circuitry, the heating element, etc.
I will be expanding my coverage of hard to recycle items and materials, but one of the articles that I can point you to now is Swiffer Sweeper – Why an Eco-Conscious Person Loves this Mop. I provide a link to an interesting organization that accepts selected hard to recycle materials like the Swiffer Sweeper disposable covers. I also give options for not using them in the first place.
