What is the environmental impact of disposable e-cigarettes “puffs”? | EUROtoday

On Sep 5, 2023

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These disposable vapes fashionable with younger individuals will quickly be banned. Plastic and with a lithium battery, they’re additionally an ecological catastrophe.

By Clement Machecourt

The puff are disposable electronic cigarettes with sweet or fruity flavors with brightly colored packaging that exist under twenty brands. — The puff are disposable digital cigarettes with candy or fruity flavors with brightly coloured packaging that exist beneath twenty manufacturers.
© JOAO LUIZ BULCAO / Hans Lucas by way of AFP

Published on 09/04/2023 at 7:15 p.m.

HASArrived in 2019 in tobacconists, they’d made a spot for themselves in the home windows with their fruity flavors and their eye-catching shade. Disposable digital cigarettes referred to as “puffs” might be banned in France, introduced Elisabeth Borne at the microphone of RTL, Sunday, September 3.

The measure might be introduced “soon” in the 2023-2028 tobacco management plan. Electronic cigarettes, though prohibited on the market to minors, have largely attracted younger customers. Beyond the well being side, they had been additionally decried for his or her environmental value.

READ ALSOProduction of single-use plastic waste hits report excessive

lithium battery

At a time of upgrading units and lowering waste, the disposable digital cigarette is like a UFO. For a median value of 8 euros, it presents another, or a gateway for its detractors, to tobacco. After 500 vapings, the puff couldn’t be recharged, after which ended its brief existence in the trash.

Problem, this piece of plastic, and particularly its battery containing about 0.15 g of lithium and heavy metals, can’t be recycled. A column entitled “The disposable puff electronic cigarette, an environmental and health scourge that must be banned urgently”, revealed in April 2023 in The world, denounced “a new single-use electronic plastic product which is already found as waste on the beaches”. She supported a invoice tabled at the finish of 2022 geared toward banning single-use digital cigarettes.

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“An immediate and long-term danger”

“The puff is an additional waste which comes on top of the 4,500 billion cigarette butts thrown away each year in nature”, identified the Alliance in opposition to tobacco, signatory of the platform. “If 72% of the youngsters questioned are conscious that this product pollutes our planet, keep in mind that the puff is made of plastic and a non-removable lithium battery, representing a direct and long-term hazard for our surroundings! »

A survey by three British media, dated July 2022, confirmed that two puffs are thrown each second in the United Kingdom. Over a yr, the lithium misplaced represents sufficient to make 1,200 electrical automotive batteries. In addition to its impact on the atmosphere, the lithium battery is harmful by beginning fires when it is crushed in a rubbish truck or in a waste therapy plant.

https://www.lepoint.fr/environnement/quel-est-l-impact-environnemental-des-cigarettes-electroniques-jetables-puffs-04-09-2023-2534057_1927.php#xtor=RSS-221