An estimated 55 million adults will be vaping by 2021, creating millions of devices that will be disposed of improperly

Vaping has been declared a serious health epidemic, but it could also create a massive recycling disaster, according to researchers. And top companies in the sector are piloting recycling programs to address the millions of devices improperly disposed of each year.

Market research group Euromonitor estimates that the number of adults who vape will reach almost 55 million by 2021. The e-cigarette market was worth approximately $5.5bn as of 2018. As of 2017, there were 565 types of e-cigarette devices on the market in the US, 184 of which were disposable or single-use, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. When littered, these products can leach dangerous metals, battery acid, and nicotine into the environment. And there is no legal way to recycle them.

While leading vape companies JUUL and Altria have expressed the need to act on the growing problem of electronic waste that their devices leave behind, “none of the companies so far have taken the necessary action,” said Yogi Hale Hendlin, a research associate at the Environmental Health Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco.

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“It is the consensus of public health researchers working on the environmental costs of tobacco that e-cigarette manufacturers need to put a product deposit system into action,” he said.

Hendlin, together with Jeremiah Mock who led the study, and their colleagues recently examined disposal of e-cigarette waste. They conducted a study at 12 San Francisco Bay area high schools and found JUUL or JUUL-compatible product waste in the parking lots of 10 out of 12 schools, collecting 172 waste items mainly from mango, mint and cucumber flavored capsules strewn about the ground.

“The presence of JUUL waste in our sample of high schools suggests that JUUL waste disposal is a significant environmental problem, particularly at high schools with more affluent student populations,” the study found.

Vape cartridges that hold flavored nicotine or cannabis solution contain chemicals and must be dealt with as hazardous waste, while the lithium ion batteries the vaping devices contain must be handled by e-waste programs, according to hazardous waste firm PEGEX.

Proper disposal of an e-cigarette requires removing the filler material, rinsing it under running water until all nicotine residues are removed, and then wrapping it in a scrap of biodegradable material. The cartridge itself should be similarly rinsed and then sealed with its original plug. “Only then can it all be discarded as you would any other plastic waste,” PEGEX said.

A representative at Recology, San Francisco’s waste management firm said e-cigarettes cannot be disposed of through its material recovery service because they contain batteries. Users can dispose of the battery part of devices at local e-waste drop off locations, a spokesman from the city’s Hazardous Waste Program said. But devices with vape fluid in them cannot be disposed through e-waste pickups.

Sophie Tat, who has worked at a convenience store and smoke shop in California for the last four years, said she decided to start an in-store recycling program after seeing customers tossing their spent vapes into the garbage or onto the street.

“People say it’s hard to do because nobody is going to listen, but it starts with one person,” she said. “I’m hoping it spreads by word of mouth and more people come to dispose of these correctly.”

Tat said she has seen purchases of vape products increase about 20% at her store in the last year and is frustrated none of the products she sells have instructions for recycling. Indeed, a 2016 study of six of the most popular vape devices found none of them offered instructions on how to dispose of them.

A spokesman from JUUL told the Guardian the company is piloting an internal take back and recycling program with employees in a number of its offices and will launch the program publicly “in the near future”.

“As part of our goal to eliminate combustible cigarettes, we are committed to responsible stewardship and environmental sustainability,” he said.

Hendlin said he and other environmental advocates have endorsed an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) model for e-cigarettes – one JUUL is considering. This would include charging users an extra deposit (ie $1.00 per pod, $5.00 per vape unit) that consumers get back when they return them, practices like returning old packaging to JUUL after receiving new pods each month, and refunding or giving credits for returned pods/vapes.

He also said the FDA should create a more clear framework for recycling these devices and should implement existing regulation addressing electronic devices.

“It would be a shame if vape products which may turn out to be less harmful to individual users than cigarettes, end up being ecologically much more harmful,” he said.