It’s not a project for most people, but watching someone ride up to 20 miles, and up to 30 mph, on tossed-out vape batteries is transfixing.

Disposable vapes are indefensible. Many, or maybe most, of them contain rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, but manufacturers prefer to sell new ones.

To make a point about how wasteful this practice is—and to also make a pretty rad project and video—Chris Doel took 130 disposable vape batteries (the bigger “3,500 puff” types with model 20400 cells) found littered at a music festival and converted them into a 48-volt, 1,500-watt e-bike battery, one that powered an e-bike with almost no pedaling more than 20 miles. You can see the whole build and watch Doel zoom along trails on his YouTube video.

  • PunnyName@lemmy.worldEnglish
    97·
    17 days ago

    Those little colored flavored vapes are IMHO one of the worst vapes. Once they’re done, there’s no replacing the flavor. I see them often at the rehab I work at. I’ve seen some with replaceable flavor cartridges, but those are also bad due to the excessive plastic waste.

    I’m all for vapes as a means to quit, but they’re also excessively used as a means of maintaining the habit.

    • EvilBit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      50·
      17 days ago

      I’m not a vape user, but the model is the kind of thing that just makes me so angry.

      In a world that makes sense:

      • small, mostly metal vape chassis
      • rechargeable, replaceable battery
      • built-in glass reservoir with charging valve
      • vape juice sold in medium to large recyclable cans with standard interface to the charging valve

      In a world where Profit is God (the real world):

      • disposable chassis
      • disposable battery
      • if it’s refillable at all, it’s via non-recyclable, mixed material, mostly plastic, proprietary cartridges and you can save 5% if you subscribe online for refills, 10% if you pay yearly, $5 credit if you refer a friend on social media using hashtag #smoovape
      • probably gives you turbo cancer because the juice is made in a repurposed Freon plant that was inadequately converted and they just don’t answer the phone when the FDA or EPA call
      • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
        261·
        17 days ago

        We used to have a great vape market for those types of vapes. Since 2020 state and fed government has rinsed the market “for the kids” and basically created what we see now, a market of 98% disposable sold by overseas companies. Before that there were countless brands making batteries, tanks, etc. now a lot of smoke shops don’t even sell refillable vapes or liquid.

        • Steak@lemmy.caEnglish
          14·
          17 days ago

          Yeah it’s a shame. I’ve been vaping for 14 Yeats now and seen the whole story unfold. It really sucks.

          • LucidBoi@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            25·
            17 days ago

            devil told me howda get rich quick numba is 666

            Edit: It’s a Yeat (rapper) reference, get over yourselves guys.

        • acid_falcon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          17 days ago

          … What? I used to smoke a pack a day, now I just vape. I’ve never seen a smoke shop that doesn’t sell juice

          • hex@programming.devEnglish
            51·
            17 days ago

            Different legislation in different places. My country banned flavours, but they still sell disposables somehow.

          • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            16 days ago

            My local shop has about 3 full 6 foot wide floor to ceiling bookcases of just disposables. Then there’s one shelf with one brand of juices and about 7 options.

      • anamethatisnt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        17 days ago

        I think part of it is something else - ease of use and ease of access.
        The “world that makes sense” product exists already:
        https://www.elementvape.com/box-mod-kits

        While I was vaping I mixed my own liquids though, as the cost savings was immense and I could easily lower the nicotine mg/ml on my own until I quit it altogether.

          • anamethatisnt@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            17 days ago

            Yeah, they had started limiting what you could buy in Sweden as well. My last time mixing I bought a silly amount of 18mg/ml 10ml strong menthol bottles and large 70/30 PG/VG bottles and ended up with my own 3mg/ml mixture that still tasted menthol, although not as overwhelmingly so.

          • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            17 days ago

            You totally can. I don’t know exactly what the laws are because it’s intentionally not clear but it’s the same process as before, order from a diy website, it comes in the mail, make your stuff at home. I think the difference is that it’s harder for websites to get the license to sell it but there are still some sites out there.

        • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          17 days ago

          I don’t vape nicotine, so those sorts of things are basically out of my reach. I wish I lived in a legal state and I could get liquid refill bottles.

      • hex@programming.devEnglish
        6·
        17 days ago

        The first thing you described is literally what we used to have. God I miss the good old days of vaping.

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2711·
      17 days ago

      Yeah tbh I’ve never really seen anyone successfully quit through vaping. Nicotine pouches or lozenges are much more effective imo.

      I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions, but like you said, the vast majority of people vaping are just maintaining.

      • karl_chungus@lemm.eeEnglish
        29·
        17 days ago

        I did. It took a while because I enjoyed it so much, but it worked better than anything else. It simulated the smoking experience, tasted great and was a fun little device to tinker with. Sure it made me look stupid but in return I got healthier lungs.

        Of course I was wrapping my own coils and used a mech mod, the concept of a juul made it so stupidly easy to vape without understanding how it works and just programmed everyone to use cartridges.

        And here we are.

        When used correctly to wean and taper, vaping can be really helpful as a quit smoking aid.

        • seaQueue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          17 days ago

          In my experience many of the people who haven’t quit are self medicating for attention or depressive reasons. Of the folks I know who vape about half were diagnosed with ADHD later in life (30+) and quit after finding a stimulant medication that worked for them. The rest are unmedicated and self medicating with nicotine and coffee or energy drinks. Self medicating is overlooked in virtually every discussion about nicotine and I’d like to see it considered more often when the topic comes up instead of just leaping straight to “nicotine use bad” or “nicotine users should be punished” like most discussions do.

          Edit: there’s also some interesting research re: nicotine’s neuroprotective properties that gets lost in the prohibition fervor

      • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.mlEnglish
        16·
        17 days ago

        Assuming non-wasteful delivery methods, I’d still call that a win as vaping is generally less harmful to the health of the user.

        Quitting is of course preferable, but I support harm reduction policies in general

      • priapus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        17 days ago

        I know quite a few people that have quit through vaping, and even if they hadn’t, vapes are definitely better for their health than cigarettes.

      • hex@programming.devEnglish
        4·
        17 days ago

        The bonus for vapes is you can wean off nicotine at a super precise rate. You can mix your nicotine juice with more and more non-nicotine juice to achieve greater and greater levels of dilution until the nicotine dose you’re taking is so low that it doesn’t matter to stop.