Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health and for the planet. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16 million Americans live with an illness caused by the practice. Likewise, the Truth Initiative points to the pollution caused by cigarette waste. Walk down any corner in the United States, and you’ll likely find cigarette butts littered all over the ground.
The campaign against smoking waged over the past several decades has worked to an extent. However, the habit has been replaced by vaping, which is not inherently better and has created its own waste problems.
Most disposable vapes are really “disposable,” ending up in landfills, but they still have critical minerals in them. To explain how valuable vapes are, a British man created a functional e-bike battery from the lithium-ion batteries inside vapes.
Chris Doel of the United Kingdom collected 150 vapes from a musical festival and extracted lithium-ion batteries from 130 of them to make a 48-volt, 1,500-watt electric bike cell. These vapes, known as the 3,500 puff vapes, carried 20400 battery cells — bigger than the 18650 lithium cells commonly used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Doel stacked the cells to reach the required voltage, hunting down information sheets and schematics from the vape manufacturers to meet proper technical requirements.
Using a vise grip and a soldering rig to get the lithium out, Doel showed how wasteful vapes are and how valuable they can be. He separated the plastic bits from the aluminum body piece. From there, he spent hours finding and extracting the lithium batteries. The aluminum and plastic parts should be recycled, especially the aluminum. More often than not, people just throw their empty vapes into the general waste stream.
It’s recommended you don’t try this at home — Doel is an experienced professional. He makes it known in his YouTube video that this should not be replicated for one’s safety.
The vape e-bike battery was quite successful. Doel said he managed to get about 20.5 miles (33 kilometers) of riding — with very little peddling — in before needing a charge. He hit 32 mph without pedaling much. His bike only cost about $76 (£60) in filament and materials, an absolute steal for one in today’s economy. On average, an e-bike battery pack is good for 300 rides, but who knows how much Doel’s makeshift cell will reach?
The experiment brings up a point about disposable vapes. They are pretty bad for the planet if just tossed in the trash, with their chemicals possibly leaking into the ground and causing more pollution. They have lithium-ion batteries that are powerful enough to function as an e-bike cell.
Imagine if they could be recycled, like when Redwood Materials asked people to donate old electronics for critical mineral recycling. Vapes could have some second-life components, but someone has to pitch the idea of recycling their critical minerals. Not to mention, the plastic and aluminum pieces could be recycled and repurposed into new products.
Photo Courtesy Chris Doel
Vapes are an ethical dilemma for many. Replacing cigarettes with vapes has caused an uproar amongst child safety advocates. Many point out how the flavored vape juice is designed to attract teenagers. Juul, the infamous USB-like nicotine vape, was forced to cease production of two of its most popular flavor pods in 2019 because they were linked with direct marketing to teens.
The U.K. government is banning disposable vapes in June 2025. The U.S. government hasn’t made a ruling on vapes yet, but it did raise the smoking age to 21 to stop the distribution of vapes among minors.
Since then, more flavor vapes have emerged, with Elf Bar becoming the new standard. The Associated Press reported that Elf Bar and its lookalikes were able to get around the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulations with rebranding, causing a surge in vaping.
U.S. Public Interest Research Group says about 11.9 million vapes were sold in the U.S. last year. Liquid nicotine is also classified as hazardous under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations, making recycling them even harder.
Imagine tossing nearly 2,600 EVs worth of batteries in the trash. Doel’s e-bike experiment highlights a possible sustainable solution for disposable vape waste.