Technology

59612 readers

3908 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

819

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] normalexit 15 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They are super common where weed is legal. People fly into somewhere like Denver for the weekend to catch a show. Rather than buying a reusable battery, they will get a disposable vape (and probably some gummies).

Then it ends up in the landfill or as litter. I am in favor of making these one time use electronics illegal (along with single use plastics like balloons, plastic silverware, etc.. but that is another thread)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

They aren't even disposable, so it's crazy to me how they can be sold as such.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, I live in legal weed state. The nearest dispensary is a mere 20 miles away. I'm not even sure they sell vapes. Flower and edibles for sure, but I have no idea if they sell vapes. (I've never been there-- weed just ain't my thing). But I still don't see any used ones tossed out. Maybe we are just neater people here and don't litter.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Come to Canada, we have weed stores on every block, like Tim Hortons but actually beneficial to the people

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I live closer to Winnipeg than I do to my state capital. We are often referred to as "Canada Lite" by other states.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Sounds like a win in my book!