Tag: vapes

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/

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 Crystal Bar 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.

Ok lets get going. You will see that the plastic tube is only accessible one end and we have to get the metal cap off first.

Use a pair of pliers to lever the metal cap off of the plastic tube. It doesn’t matter if you bend it up too much as you are just going to recycle it anyway.

Next you will see a rubber cap, lever it slightly with some pliers then use it to pull the whole of the insides out of the plastic tube.

Now we have a metal tube and we need to grab the rubber part either end to extract the whole insides out of the metal tube. Don’t worry if it comes apart slightly, just use a screwdriver or pliers to extract any bits left in the metal tube.

Now you should be able to gently pull the wires connected between the battery and the vape liquid tube to separate them.

Now you need to snip the wire from the positive side of the battery to disconnect it.

Then pull off the tape holding the wires to the battery, I couldn’t pull it off very easily so I gave it a careful snip then pulled the wires through.

Now to completely disconnect the battery we just need to snip the two negative wires from the negative side of the battery.

Now just pull the component out of the rubber part to separate them.

Now we need to pull the rubber bits out from the liquid tube to separate the pieces in there.

Sometimes its a good move to give that clear plastic tube a quick rince under the tap before you recycle it as it often has some left over juice. Next we need to pull apart the rubber and fabric parts from the small metal part.

Then grab hold of that metal part with some pliers and use a second pair of pliers to pull out the fabric in the middle.

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/

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 600 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.

Here we go, although the larger lid is easier to grab and get off, it doesn’t let you get the insides out easily from that end. So you need to find the little hole at the other end and use something small to lever it off.

Once off you should be able to pull out all of the insides in one go

Then take the other lid off as below

Next separate the battery by cutting the wires. I would do the positive side first as there is only one wire to cut there.

Then cut both wires from the negative side to separate the battery completely.

Lever out the electronics from the lid with some small pliers.

Remove the rubber bungs and hard plastic tube, its best to give the plastic tube a quick rinse after to wash any vape liquid off too.

Then just separate the remaining wires from the other material by cutting.

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/

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 Lost Mary or Bloody Mary 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.

Here we go, grab the big pliers and give the lid a wiggle and a yank.

Pull the bits of rubber and material out of the lid.

Now grab your smaller pliers and you should be able to grab the clear bit of hard plastic within the main case to pull all of the insides out in one go.

Now you can remove the other lid from the main case.

Next we have to focus on the insides, first remove the clear plastic completely, pull the sticky piece off the side too and give it a rince ready for recycling.

We can now disconnect the battery wires. I always start from the positive side as there is only one wire, cut that away.

You can see on the negative side they use a confusing mix of red and black wires, as you have already disconnected the positive side it should be safe to cut through both to disconnect the battery completely.

Pull apart the material that contains the liquid and snip the wires as shown below to separate them.

Pull them all apart and you should now have all parts separated.

Dispose of the hard plastic pieces and metal case in the recycling. Take the battery to a battery recycling collection point and the wires and components to a waste electrical recycling point. The rubber parts you can recycle in some places but not all accept them. The other material parts you may just have to throw in the bin.

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/

Intro

Electronic vapes have been around for a while now and are a good way to move away from smoking cigarettes (though it may introduce other health issues). The reuseable vapes are great, you can charge them up and add whichever flavour liquid you fancy with the amount of nicotine required. However, the rise in popularity of vapes have introduced a monster with “disposable” electronic vapes or cigarettes appearing over the last year or two in a big way. These things are extremely bad for the environment then the low cost, bright colours and range of sweet flavours makes them very attractive to children. For those reasons, in my opinion, it should be illegal to make and sell these disposable devices.

Environmental Impact

I live in Greater London and at the moment I can guarentee that if you walk down any street you are very likely to find one of these devices disguarded on the pavement, in the road, on the grass verge etc. I even went for a visit to a seaside location and the beach was littered with these! On the envronmental side nobody seems able to dispose of these properly, its much easier to chuck it out of your car window or put it in the general waste than work out how to dispose of it correctly. If you do try to take it apart to recycle the various components it isn’t an easy task as we shall show below. Do they get recycled if they are put in battery recycling collection points?

The e-cigarette casings contain a mixture of plastic, rubber and metal which when broken down turn into microplastics and chemicals which pollute waterways and be bad for wildlife. The vape liquid contains various substances such as nicotine, propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine, and flavourings which can be toxic to the environment on their own when disguarded. The largest issue to me is the lithium-ion battery which contains hazardous substances such as lead and mercury. The lithium contained in e-cigarette batteries is not just an environmental and public health hazard when discarded, but a precious natural resource that must be conserved, reused, and recycled. The ten tons of lithium discarded in vapes yearly in the U.K. alone is enough to construct 1,200 electric vehicles. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency estimates the world will face lithium shortages by 2025. With that in mind I’ve taken a few pictures of what is happening to these devices on our streets:

Damaged Vapes Recycled

Here are a few disposable vapes I found damaged in the road that I attempted to take apart into their recyclable components. I’ll go into various vape types and how to take them apart later on but these ones took a bit more effort than normal as the outside cases were squashed but I managed to get them apart:

How to disassemble the various types of disposable Vape

Here I have linked a new page to show you how to disassemble each type of vape so that you can break it down into components to recycle. Just a warning that 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.

How to dissasssemble Lost Mary or Bloody Mary disposable electronic vapes: https://junglebiscuit.com/how-to-break-down-a-lost-mary-or-bloody-mary-disposable-electronic-vape-or-cigarette/

How to dissasssemble Elfbar 600 disposable electronic vapes: https://junglebiscuit.com/how-to-break-down-an-elfbar-disposable-electronic-vape-or-cigarette-into-components/

How to dissasssemble Crystal Bar disposable electronic vapes: https://junglebiscuit.com/how-to-break-down-a-Crystal Bar-disposable-electronic-vape-or-cigarette-into-components/