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Guy makes “dodgy e-bike” from 130 used vapes to make point about e-waste (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by gedaliyah to c/technology

101 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] PunnyName 97 points 2 weeks ago (25 children)

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 50 points 2 weeks ago (14 children)

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 25 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

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.

[–] acid_falcon 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

... 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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] BowtiesAreCool 2 points 2 weeks 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.

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