After finding a mysterious object that popped their tire, a car owner took to Reddit to ask for help identifying it.
"It punctured a tire," they wrote, including a photo of the object still embedded in the wheel. "Thin hollow metal tube surrounded by foam and encased in another metal tube that's painted orange. It's roughly the diameter of a penny."
While some commenters were convinced it was an insulated cable or wire, another suggested something else.
"I've taken apart nicotine vapes that look EXACTLY like this," one person said.
Others quickly jumped in to confirm this assessment.
"It's a disposable vape," one wrote. "Folks … have been repeatedly seeing these recently on roads."
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"I had the same thing happen to me about a year ago," chimed in another commenter. "Disposable e cig. … I guess smoker habits die hard. I guess they throw them out the window the same way they did traditional cigarettes."
"People just throw them out on the ground far too often," another echoed. "So it wouldn't be at all surprising that one found its way into your tire."
Indeed, this isn't the first time vapes have been culpable of puncturing tires. It's a particularly frustrating phenomenon for cyclists, whose efforts to be environmentally friendly have been thwarted by such a harmful product.
According to UC Davis, e-cigarettes and vapes present an array of environmental threats as well as health threats — not just for the people using them but the people who live and breathe near them. These vapes contain numerous toxic chemicals, including heavy metals.
Combined with the fact that they contain components that cannot be recycled, they often make their way into nature and into waterways, where they leach these pollutants. People have even seen animals accidentally consuming them.
The Annual Review of Public Health also published a study on indoor air quality, which found that e-cigs and vapes are similarly pollutive as regular cigarettes, putting bystanders at risk of exposure to carcinogens, toxic compounds, and heavy metals.
"It would be nice if places that sold them had to buy back the empties for a dollar or something," one person suggested. "The lithium cells in them are still usable."
Fortunately, while it takes a bit of additional effort, there are ways to send these cells back to proper recycling facilities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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