Resource management company Veolia has launched a national vape collection service to help provide safe disposal and recycling routes for the three million vapes currently thrown away each week.
Veolia can now facilitate the collection and transport of vapes from retailers to a recycling facility to extract the valuable materials, including lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese, inside.
The recycling of these items could save more than 10 tonnes of lithium that could be recycled into new products from the batteries, which would save up to 72 tonnes of carbon emissions compared to using raw materials, as producing one tonne of lithium from ore produces around nine tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Collections will be scheduled according to demand and in order to store and transport these materials safely, Veolia will provide retailers with individual containers of vermiculite, a mineral that will minimise fire risks from the lithium-ion batteries contained within the vapes.
Donald Macphail, Chief Operating Officer – Treatment at Veolia UK, said: “Two vapes are thrown away every second. They might be called disposable, but they can and should be recycled.
“Our new nationwide vape collection service will provide a safe recycling avenue to retailers who provide the mandatory take back schemes for vapes and ensure that we can extract the valuable materials contained within, and mitigate any fire and environmental risks.”
