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This included 260m disposable vapes
Material Focus said that when consumers bought a cheap item, they saw it as disposable.
"And so you disposed of the disposable vape? Why did you assume that that was the appropriate way to deal with it?"
"It was an innocent mistake! It could have happened to anyone!"
Exactly. The fact that "disposable" vapes even exist is mind-boggling. And now they account for more than half of the electrical waste going to landfill. π€¦π»ββοΈ
Why do they even exist? Can't they be banned?
It's like buying a USB battery pack to recharge your phone - and then chucking it out after it's run out.
Disposable vapes are actually made in a way where they would be fully reusable if they had a charging port and replacement cartridges available so it's not even anything but pure greed and laziness
The fact that vape companies seem to make their disposable offerings the only ones with the 'good' experience, while their reusable items are objectively inferior is a crime against environment.
Wait, thereβs no Silicon Heaven?
But...Where do all the calculators go?
And what about biros? Have you never wondered where all those biros go?
I'd be interested to know the proportion of people who know how electronic waste can be recycled. And how often the average person visits their local recycling center.
I have dozens of items boxed up in need of disposal but I never find the time to research how, let alone making the journey to a recycling center
I know you can take them to the recycling centre, but I don't have a car, so I just hoard them in a room in my house.
Depending on the item, I sometimes hoard it in a different room, where I can fix it or dismantle it for useful components, if I ever had the time or inclination to do so.
Fortunately though, once a year, our local council does a "put it on the street and we'll take it" day, and they come and collect things and take them to the right place.
We've got U-Haul in the US; one can rent a truck ranging from pickup sized up to tractor-trailer size. If the UK doesn't have U-Haul, they'll have some company that fills the same role.
googles
Yeah, they're in the UK. Checking the prices at a random UK location, it looks like a pickup or cargo van runs $19.95 plus $0.59/kilometer. Though...you'd need to have a driver's license or know someone who does. Hmm. That's not something that comes up much over here, outside of maybe New York City.
Yeah, there's plenty of car and van rental places - but yes, you need a driving licence for it.
Note that I'm probably in the minority not being able to drive - I think almost half of the people I know have cars and licences these days - and that would be a far higher number in a more rural or wealthier area.
Mattresses should be recyclable
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Almost half a billion small, cheap electrical everyday items from headphones to handheld fans ended up in landfill in the UK in the past year, according to research.
The not-for-profit organisation Material Focus, which conducted the research, said the scale of the issue was huge and they wanted to encourage more recycling.
This included 260m disposable vapes, 26m cables, 29m LED, solar and decorative lights, 9.8m USB sticks, and 4.8m miniature fans.
Material Focus said that while people were used to the idea of recycling larger electrical items such as fridges, lots of smaller devices were left unused in houses.
In the average UK home, the research found, there were four to five charging cables, two to three mobile phones, and two to three remote controls cluttering up cupboards.
A Material Focus survey of 2,000 people found that every year, the average UK adult buys nine electrical items cheaply and throws away eight.
The original article contains 455 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
In have the right to sell shiti plastics items to the poors...
Fuck your planet, boy