Disposable vapes are cheap to make and easy to discard – but their underlying human cost is racking up everyday on campus
The use of disposable vapes has skyrocketed in recent years with an estimated 543,000 people in Scotland vaping, 7.7m single-use vapes being bought per week, and 5m disposable vapes being thrown away each week, as of 2023. Walking through Glasgow it is impossible not to spot the use of e-cigarettes on almost every corner and discarded vapes littering the pavement.
The rapid normalisation of vaping has led to a staggering number of young people taking up smoking, being sucked in by the colourful designs and sweet flavours, without knowing the real dangers of smoking and the addictive nature of nicotine. An estimated 1 in 10 pupils in secondary school vape. These figures are particularly worrying as there is no real research on the long-term impacts of regular vaping, so it is not clear how the next generation will be impacted by this habit.
Researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia have stated that while the liquids used in disposable vapes are safe to eat, there is limited research on the impact of inhaling these liquids, and therefore it is not clear what the lasting health impacts of inhaling these chemicals will be.
Not only does vaping have a significant impact on health, but the impact on the environment is detrimental with a significant increase in water consumption, pollution, and littering, as well as improper disposal of vapes leading to lithium battery explosions and fires.
While disposable vapes can be recycled, many vape users do not know how or where to recycle their vapes, with many disposing of single-use vapes alongside general waste, leading to harmful numbers of disposable vapes both in landfills and littering the streets. One Scottish government report found that out of the 26m single-use vapes that were disposed of between June 2022 and 2023, over 50% were disposed of incorrectly, and 10% were littered. This staggering number is not sustainable and not affordable, with findings from Materials Focus estimating the cost per year to collect and recycle disposable vapes to be around £200m. This money is not currently being paid by producers, so surely we cannot afford to continue this unhealthy and destructive habit.
In addition to the waste created by single-use vapes, improper disposal can also be extremely dangerous as broken lithium batteries can be highly explosive and have led to an estimated 1,200 fires in bin lorries throughout 2024. This puts waste workers at a significant and unfair risk of harm that could easily be avoided if vapes were disposed of correctly.
The production process for disposable vapes also causes a considerable amount of pollution, and increased water consumption. A Zero Waste Scotland report found that in 2022, the total emissions related to the production of single-use vapes was 4,292 tonnes CO2e, this is the equivalent of over 2000 cars on the road. With pollution levels already much too high, and the effects of climate change becoming increasingly obvious each day, we cannot afford to create such a large amount of pollution for unnecessary items like vapes.
Disposable vapes are powered by lithium batteries, also containing cobalt. Typically, disposable vapes contain 0.15g of lithium. This lithium and cobalt are mined in countries such as The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, among others. The DRC is responsible for mining over 50% of the world’s cobalt, however, there are significant human rights and environmental concerns over these mines. According to Amnesty International, many of the Congolese mines rely heavily on the labour of children working up to 12 hours per day, pay workers next to nothing,force miners to work in hazardous and potentially deadly conditions with no PPE, as well as using violence towards workers, including children—some as young as four years old.
Artisanal mines make up much of The DRC’s mining industry and make use of hand dug mines with no supports, and no safety equipment for miners. These mines could cave in at any time and often injure miners, sometimes burying them alive. Research conducted in that same report found that at least 80 artisanal miners died in the DRC between 2014 and 2015. These miners risk their lives everyday for the equivalent of around $2, just to power our devices such as phones, electric vehicles, and vapes.
As the world turns to renewable energy to help combat the climate crisis, we cannot afford to waste valuable resources like lithium and cobalt on disposable vapes as research from Greenpeace has found that in the UK, more than 40 tonnes of lithium was discarded along with disposable vapes in 2022. This means that while miners risk their lives every day in the DRC, those in the UK are helping fund this exploitation, and throwing away the materials mined after using a vape for a matter of days. This cannot continue. Plans to ban single-use vapes in the UK are set to go ahead in June 2025, with Minister Mary Creagh stating, ‘Single-use vapes are extremely wasteful and blight our towns and cities. That is why we are banning single use vapes as we end this nation’s throwaway culture.’ However, this ban has been met with mixed responses with many in support of the ban, but some claiming it will only increase the illegal sale of single-use vapes and will not effectively tackle the issue. Therefore, it is not yet clear what the impact of the ban will be. However, it is clear that we cannot continue consuming single-use vapes at the current rate as the environment can no longer take it.
