Walking in nature, you'll likely see some common sights — vibrant green scenery, bright blue skies, enchanting wildlife. And, unfortunately, a whole lot of discarded single-use vapes.
It's a trashy trend many nature lovers are sick of encountering, including one Redditor who recently took to the platform to share a disturbing find from their beach day. In the Reddit post, the beachgoer shared a photo of a discarded single-use vape in damp sea-soaked sand.
"There's no safe way to recycle or dispose of these lithium battery devices," the poster captioned their photo.
Many fellow Redditors shared that they've also encountered single-use vapes on their nature walks — and lamented how disheartening it is to find vapes in the wild.
"I keep finding some here when I walk my dogs," one commenter wrote. "People are disgusting."
"I hate how normalized these eco-disasters have become," another commenter added. "Every single corner shop around me has a big display of these."
A third commenter wrote, "We traded cigarette butts for these?"
Vapes have indeed become the new cigarette butts, littering sidewalks, hiking trails, parking lots, and more. While cigarette butts are bad, single-use vapes are arguably worse with their plastic components, lithium batteries, and harmful chemical components.
Aside from the horrific health impacts of vaping, the bad habit contributes to a bad waste problem. According to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, U.S. smokers throw out 4.5 disposable vapes per second. Environment America reports that lining up the disposable vapes sold in the country each year would span the continental U.S. twice.
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Some studies estimate that the average smoker takes about 200 puffs of their vape per day. Disposable vapes often only last for 300 to 600 puffs and are made to be discarded — but not before having a huge environmental impact.
Yes, vapes are unsightly when discarded in nature. But vape production is also extremely harmful to the environment — and ethically questionable. Making a single-use vape requires the extraction of natural resources, including lithium, which is both environmentally taxing and often mined with unethical labor. And that's not even to mention all the polluting plastic that goes into the handheld smoking devices.
Then, there are the environmental impacts of actually using the device. Studies show that vaping leads to high levels of indoor air pollution and can have similar secondhand smoke impacts as cigarettes.
There is no "good way" to dispose of a single-use vape. The "right way" is to send it to a landfill where it will break down into harmful microplastics while also leaching harmful toxins, heavy metals, and nicotine into the environment. That's because vapes are almost impossible to recycle. As Greenpeace notes, vapes are designed as one unit, so the lithium batteries can't be easily separated from the plastic shell and other materials.
The CDC reports that vapes are the most-used tobacco product among youths. But even though vapes are popular, studies find most middle and high school students who vape want to quit.
Some countries — like the U.K. and China — have taken steps to address the environmental impact of disposable vapes. The U.K. plans to ban disposable vapes by 2025, while China banned the production and sale of flavored disposable e-cigarettes in 2022.
Several U.S. states, including California and New York, have enacted bans on the sale of single-use e-cigarettes. These efforts aim to reduce the environmental harm caused by disposable vapes, encouraging users to switch to reusable and more sustainable alternatives. Or, hopefully, quit altogether.
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