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Tag: waste

  • Vape Batteries Causing Rise in Waste Fires

    Vape Batteries Causing Rise in Waste Fires

    Last year was “a year of growth” for Fire Rover, but as a company that specializes in fire detection and suppression, that’s not entirely good news. The company, which releases annual reports on waste and recycling facility fires in the U.S. and Canada, said it saw a 60% increase in fire identifications in 2024. Confirmed fires have increased from 1,409 in 2022, to 1,809 in 2023, to 2,910 last year. Publicly reported fire incidents at waste and recycling facilities also hit 398, a new high since Fire Rover began compiling its report eight years ago.

    Fires at waste facilities are nothing new and can be sparked from numerous causes. However, Ryan Fogelman, CEO of Fire Rover, says lithium-ion batteries pose a growing problem, specifically those from e-cigarettes, vapes, and other battery-powered nicotine devices. He said, based on his experience and some assumptions, that about half of the fires he’s tracking originate with batteries. Roughly $2.5 billion of loss to facilities and infrastructure came from fires last year, divided between traditional hazards and batteries.

    “Not only are their batteries being improperly discarded in waste and recycling bins, but the vape industry has done the bare minimum to invest in the technology needed to address the 1.2 billion vapes entering our waste and recycling streams annually,” Fogelman said.

    “Vapes are perhaps the most effective single thing the e-waste and recycling industries could target,” Kevin Purdy, wrote for ARS Technica. “If everybody knew how to dispose of vapes properly, at sites that can safely handle them, there could be a reduction in risk.

    “But that safe, evenly distributed vape disposal network does not exist.”

  • Disposable Vape Waste a Problem for Cities

    Disposable Vape Waste a Problem for Cities

    Photo: bennyrobo

    Disposable e-cigarettes are creating a new waste management challenge for U.S. local governments. One of the main issues is that the battery-powered products are classified as hazardous waste.

    The devices, which contain nicotine, lithium and other metals, cannot be reused or recycled. Under federal environmental law, they shouldn’t go in the trash.

    “We are in a really weird regulatory place where there is no legal place to put these and yet we know, every year, tens of millions of disposables are thrown in the trash,” Yogi Hale Hendlin, a health and environmental researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Associated Press.

    In late August, sanitation workers in Monroe County, New York, packed more than 5,500 e-cigarettes into 55-gallon steel drums for transport to a giant industrial waste incinerator in northern Arkansas, where they would be melted down. Local officials said it’s the only way to keep the devices out of waterways and landfills.

    “These are very insidious devices,” said Michael Garland, director of the county’s environmental services. “They’re a fire risk, and they’re certainly an environmental contaminant if not managed properly.”

    Elsewhere, the disposal process has become both costly and complicated. In New York City, for example, officials are seizing hundreds of thousands of banned vapes from local stores and spending more than $1 each for disposal.

    Vaping critics say the industry has skirted responsibility for the environmental impact of its products while federal regulators have failed to force changes that could make vaping components easier to recycle or less wasteful.

    Disposable e-cigarettes currently account for about 53 percent of the multibillion U.S. vaping market, according to U.S. government figures, more than doubling since 2020.