Firstly, safety – The batteries can still carry an electrical charge and can be dangerous still so if you are not confident then I would recommend you put the whole thing into battery recycling rather than try to break it down yourself first. For those who wish to contine I have put a guide below on how I disassemble and recycle the Elfbar Cigalike disposable electronic vapes or Cigarettes I find.
First of all, get your tools ready, I use a couple of pairs of different sized Pliers, some snippers and a screwdriver.
Right, lets crack on. The Cigalike is a very compact design and is one of the most difficult to disassemble. The first step is to use a tool like screwdriver or pliers to lever the top off.
Use the same method to remove the cap from the other side.
Now you should see the wires and electronic component one end, I was able to grab this and pull out most of the insides. Sometimes the come out whole sometimes not, if not use a tool to poke the rest through the tube.
Once everything is out it should look like the image below.
The good news is that once the insides are out of the tube it is one of the easiest vapes to separate the components and recycle. The next step is to disconnect the battery, snip the single red wire from the positive side. Sorry about the images by the way, I didn’t realise how blurry they were until I uploaded them here!
Give the tape a small snip in the middle and pull the wires through.
Now snip the wires attached to the negative side of the battery to disconnect it completely.
Now snip the two wires that go into the white tube.
Now grab the wires and pull them clear of the rubber piece.
Just pull the other bits apart now and you are done.
Once you have done that everything should be nicely separated. Recycle the plastic and metal bits in your normal recycling. The battery can be taken to battery recycling, they have these in lots of the big shops and your council should have various facilities. The electronic part and wires can be put in the waste electrical equipment recycling (all councils have these facilities). The rubber is sometimes recycled but sometimes not. If not you can bin it with the fabric pieces.
Here is a before and after of a large batch of crystal vapes that myself and friends found and recycled.
Well done for recycling these items and having a positive impact, read more here: https://junglebiscuit.com/guide-on-how-to-recycle-disposable-electronic-vapes-or-cigarettes/