Reconomy to offer new recycling service for disposable vapes
It is estimated that approximately 1.3 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week in the UK*, that’s equal to an eye-watering 67.6 million per year.
Creating enough waste to fill 22 football pitches, this staggeringly high number alone represents a significant environmental headache, but unfortunately the bad news doesn’t stop there. Disposable vapes become even more challenging because they contain a potent mixture of plastic, copper and a lithium battery, the latter of which also happens to hazardous. This makes them extremely difficult to recycle.
Lithium batteries are also highly flammable and have resulted in dangerous fires in bin lorries and waste processing centres. The amount of lithium thrown away in disposable vapes each year is enough to make batteries for 1,200 electric cars.
Reconomy, the leading provider of technology-enabled services to drive the circular economy, has recognised the environmental and health & safety threats posed by disposable vapes and is launching a new recycling capability to help tackle the alarming statistics surrounding them.
This new service will provide Reconomy customers with a dedicated storage container onsite to safely collect used, disposable vapes, which will then be transported to a specialist recycling facility for processing.
*From research commissioned by Material Focus.
Commenting on the launch of its new disposable vape recycling capabilities, Reconomy’s Head of Circular Solutions, David Seal, said:
“Vapes have become a major environmental threat in recent years and we need to tackle them urgently. Reconomy’s new recycling capability will help both our customers and the wider environment by ensuring lithium and other harmful materials contained within disposable vapes aren’t finding their way to landfill sites. We’re very excited about this new service and its potential for significantly reduce the problems posed by disposable vapes.
Discover the full-service offering on the page below and find out how Reconomy can help your business tackle the dangers of disposable vapes:
https://www.reconomy.com/what-we-do/recycle/waste-management/single-stream-recycling/vape-recycling/