According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking harms nearly every single organ in the body[1]. It is therefore no wonder that so many individuals want to quit smoking, and look for any way they can make it so. Unlike gum and patches, vaping provides them with a relatively easy and safe alternative[2] and it is even eco-friendly.
Weighing Tobacco Smoking Against Vaping
Every single year our planet is littered with more than four trillion cigarette butts–cigarette butts that are made with cellulose acetate, a plastic also used to coat playing cards. Needless to say, even if tobacco smokers threw all their butts away in garbage cans, these cigarette butts never dissolve. Instead, they melt into a sort of plastic puddle that can take up to ten years to decompose. In comparison, the waste of one disposable e-cigarette, which obviously can be used far longer than one tobacco cigarette, can eliminate the waste of roughly a full pack and a half of tobacco cigarettes. Individuals who vape e-liquid are helping reduce waste even more, as most cartomizers and tanks can be reused. Furthermore, most batteries, cartomizers and e-cigarettes themselves are recyclable.
Call2Recycle[3] can help you to find the nearest location that accepts batteries for recycling, and many electronics and hardware stores have recycling stations for batteries. E-liquid bottles can be rinsed and recycled, and vapor cartridges are also recyclable, as long as you first remove all the filler material and wash the cartridge thoroughly before tossing it into the recycling bin. It can take time to sort and prepare your e-cigarette supplies for recycling, but it is well worth it when it helps protect our planet.
While some lawmakers and scientists are seeking to restrict vaping as part of clean air laws, the truth is that it is not comparable to secondhand tobacco smoke. Whereas tobacco smoke is full of dangerous carcinogens that harm both human beings as well as our planet, a new study has indicated that exhaled e-cigarette smoke is composed of liquid droplets that evaporate far more rapidly than exhaled tobacco smoke[4]. So while some may argue that abstaining from all smoking and vaping is ultimately the most eco-friendly choice, there is no doubt that vaping is far more eco-friendly than traditional tobacco smoking. With the choice to recycle their vaping products, vapors are actually in a position to do something helpful for their planet, while enjoying a far healthier option than tobacco smoking.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/ [2] http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20140730/benefits-of-e-cigarettes-may-outweigh-harms-study-finds [3] http://www.call2recycle.org/ [4] http://www.sciencecodex.com/new_study_finds_exhaled_ecigarette_vapour_particles_disappear_within_seconds-180599