A Little Moan About ‘Disposable’ Vapes …

[WD Pro]

I don’t really know where to have a little rant about this issue, so here will have to do …

A bit of a long story, but to set the scene :

Me and the misses have been targeting some sleeping problems, and part of the process is having a fixed wake up time, and then immediately becoming active with as much daylight as possible.

That’s not a problem during the week, but we needed something to do at weekend.

We decided to walk to a local chain bakery store that’s open 24 hours to have a croissant or porridge along with a cup of tea.

Our youngest (8) normally joins us as she naturally wakes at the same time as us.

4.2 mile round trip, a nice chunk of daily steps, some good chat time without phones, breakfast with no tidy up at home and a fixed wake up routine - perfect, ticks a lot of boxes

So this is our third weekend, and we had become increasingly aware of a large amount of disposable vapes discarded at the roadside.

Our route there goes through our community / council and we have quite an active litter picking group. The vapes have typically been different ones every week as the older / previous weeks have been cleared away.

On this route the vapes we have seen have been new / fresh (some still flashing so easy to spot) and I suspect discarded as A) we cross a freeway entrance / exit (last / first place to dump them when joining / leaving the freeway) and B) the same junction has a huge Amazon distribution centre and other distribution centres - Aldi etc (high amount of staff using that junction on foot, bike and vehicle).

Today we chose to do a circular route and walked a different way home, through a different community / council, and one obviously without an active litter picking group.

As a bit of an environmental project with our daughter, we decided to collect the vapes to see what impact they were having on our local community / environment.

We didn’t go looking hard for them, we said we would only collect from the sidewalk we were on, and the kerbside at the side of where we were walking i.e. only one side of the road, no routing in bushes, no diversions up side streets etc etc.

So here is what we found :

Walk there - 9 vapes, all new and only one that was there yesterday (the litter pickers must have been around).

Walk home - 21 vapes, a mixture of old and new (no litter pickers on this route)

That’s a lot of plastic, electronics and lithium batteries for 4.2 miles …

Perhaps we should encourage this group of vape dumpers to go back on real cigarettes, so they can go back to only poisoning themselves and not our local environment …

WD

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[compprep]

The few times wife and I volunteered on Earth Day cleaning, the amount of plain old cigarettes butts at stop signs or traffic lights was WAY more than regular trash. Got to a point I didn't bother as I'd be in one spot for way to long. But yes, why do smokers feel the earth is one big ash tray? Heck, now when we go shopping wife almost always picks up some type of trash on the walk in/ out of store.

 

[Cobra Jet]

Unfortunately people are just disgusting and will dispose of anything onto the ground, whether it's chucking it out their moving car or off their person during a walk/bicycle ride.

It's the #myworldnooneelseislivinginit mentality.

In NJ, some towns have banned bags - plastic or paper. So you have to bring your own bags when shopping. But although it's a good attempt to curb the littering and for a "better environment", there's still excessive other trash in the parking lots, on the sides of medians and anywhere else in public - because people are ignorant.

I mean, does it really pain someone to just wait until they're near a trash can or until they get home to dispose of XYZ properly?

During the height of COVID, there were both disposable and cloth masks littered everywhere... utterly disgusting people.

 

[CrazyHippie]

I don’t really know where to have a little rant about this issue, so here will have to do …

A bit of a long story, but to set the scene :

Me and the misses have been targeting some sleeping problems, and part of the process is having a fixed wake up time, and then immediately becoming active with as much daylight as possible.

That’s not a problem during the week, but we needed something to do at weekend.

We decided to walk to a local chain bakery store that’s open 24 hours to have a croissant or porridge along with a cup of tea.

Our youngest (8) normally joins us as she naturally wakes at the same time as us.

4.2 mile round trip, a nice chunk of daily steps, some good chat time without phones, breakfast with no tidy up at home and a fixed wake up routine - perfect, ticks a lot of boxes

So this is our third weekend, and we had become increasingly aware of a large amount of disposable vapes discarded at the roadside.

Our route there goes through our community / council and we have quite an active litter picking group. The vapes have typically been different ones every week as the older / previous weeks have been cleared away.

On this route the vapes we have seen have been new / fresh (some still flashing so easy to spot) and I suspect discarded as A) we cross a freeway entrance / exit (last / first place to dump them when joining / leaving the freeway) and B) the same junction has a huge Amazon distribution centre and other distribution centres - Aldi etc (high amount of staff using that junction on foot, bike and vehicle).

Today we chose to do a circular route and walked a different way home, through a different community / council, and one obviously without an active litter picking group.

As a bit of an environmental project with our daughter, we decided to collect the vapes to see what impact they were having on our local community / environment.

We didn’t go looking hard for them, we said we would only collect from the sidewalk we were on, and the kerbside at the side of where we were walking i.e. only one side of the road, no routing in bushes, no diversions up side streets etc etc.

So here is what we found :

Walk there - 9 vapes, all new and only one that was there yesterday (the litter pickers must have been around).

Walk home - 21 vapes, a mixture of old and new (no litter pickers on this route)

That’s a lot of plastic, electronics and lithium batteries for 4.2 miles …

Perhaps we should encourage this group of vape dumpers to go back on real cigarettes, so they can go back to only poisoning themselves and not our local environment …

WD

Trust me, there's no need to go back to cigarettes to poison themselves. Give it 10 or 20 more years and these experimenters are going to learn about the result of inhaling the chemicals in their vape fluids.

 

[WD Pro]

Trust me, there's no need to go back to cigarettes to poison themselves. Give it 10 or 20 more years and these experimenters are going to learn about the result of inhaling the chemicals in their vape fluids.

Yeah I had also said that from day one of these things starting to appear - especially in the early days when I suspect laws / legislation around the manufacture and supply of the fluids was probably non existent, or at very best, playing catch up …

Anyhow, we did the there and back walk for our porridge this morning, staying in our local community, same pavement there and back so only a 2.1 mile stretch (that we cleared last Sunday, and the local litter pickers were out this morning) - eight new vapes …

WD

 

[WD Pro]

It was a particularly fresh walk (-3C) to earn our porridge and brews this morning

The frost and leaves probably hid some from sight, but the score was still nine …

I also removed a 6” screwdriver from the road pictured above - better than it going in someone’s tyre

It’s a shame this had seen multiple run overs (old iPod shuffle) :

WD

 

[CrazyHippie]

It was a particularly fresh walk (-3C) to earn our porridge and brews this morning

The frost and leaves probably hid some from sight, but the score was still nine …

I also removed a 6” screwdriver from the road pictured above - better than it going in someone’s tyre

It’s a shame this had seen multiple run overs (old iPod shuffle) :

WD

Breathtaking scenery. I'll bet that your morning walks are quite enjoyable.

 

[WD Pro]

Breathtaking scenery. I'll bet that your morning walks are quite enjoyable.

They are a nice way to start the day, and get 10k steps in before most people have opened the front door or even got out of bed

We don’t live in a great area, but the scenery is nice as nature is nature, just got to make sure that the camera is pointing in the right direction … lol

No more vapes on Sunday, well, none that could be seen :

WD

 

[raptor17GT]

i should start my day with a walk outside but it's too damned dark and I'm way too lazy. Trying to do housework before i start my day (wfh) so at least i do something productive instead of vegging in front of the tv

 

[WD Pro]

i should start my day with a walk outside but it's too damned dark and I'm way too lazy. Trying to do housework before i start my day (wfh) so at least i do something productive instead of vegging in front of the tv

My misses claims you need to do something (exercise related) about eight times with consistent timing before it just kind of becomes routine, rather then being a chore / not having time / it not fitting in with your lifestyle etc.

Although I hadn’t really thought about it in the past, from experience, I think that’s pretty damn accurate

Yesterday we got absolutely drenched, so in between dodging flooded sections, fighting the umbrella in the wind, we weren’t really looking for vapes. Still found four though, and part of a screwdriver (another two vapes picked up from our own street just after the photo) :

I also picked up one of those large nitrous oxide bottles that have got popular with the kids, and dropped it in a roadside bin.

We went to our local beauty spot for our morning walk today, and we stopped to pick another two up out of the road :

WD

 

[raptor17GT]

My misses claims you need to do something (exercise related) about eight times with consistent timing before it just kind of becomes routine, rather then being a chore / not having time / it not fitting in with your lifestyle etc.

Although I hadn’t really thought about it in the past, from experience, I think that’s pretty damn accurate

Yesterday we got absolutely drenched, so in between dodging flooded sections, fighting the umbrella in the wind, we weren’t really looking for vapes. Still found four though, and part of a screwdriver (another two vapes picked up from our own street just after the photo) :

I also picked up one of those large nitrous oxide bottles that have got popular with the kids, and dropped it in a roadside bin.

We went to our local beauty spot for our morning walk today, and we stopped to pick another two up out of the road :

WD

yeah getting into the habit is a biggy for it. Its the weather, can't be bothered getting booted and suited for the rain and wind then trudging round and then the faff of getting changed back into dry clothing. I should buy better clothing and just deal with it lol. During the dry spells I was out for a 15-20 minute walk first thing then back out at lunchtime is roughly the same so I was not too bad at getting out and about. My excuse is the pavements round here are nice and smooth so when the weather is greasy or icy then it's like a giant ice rink. No excuses though, i just need to get back into the rhythm of it

 

[Cobra Jet]

WD

What you should do is take a week or a month of your "collections" and go to your city/town officials with images or a trash bag full... so they can see there's a problem...

It's probably the same people daily chucking the stuff out on their way to/from home... Wouldn't doubt it if it's someone who isn't supposed to be vaping at home and is discarding their stuff before getting there...

Set up some indiscreet battery powered hunting cams along the route to see if you find "repeaters".

 

[key01]

It’s no different than tossing a cigarette butt, McDonald’s bag, cups, bottles, beer cans, face masks, needles, etc. You get the picture and the streets are full of it everywhere. Thank you WD for cleaning up for the inconsiderate. Some people were just not properly raised to respect their environment.

 

[WD Pro]

What you should do is take a week or a month of your "collections" and go to your city/town officials with images or a trash bag full... so they can see there's a problem...

We are actually thinking of doing this (or the local paper) just to get the point across.

There are some rumours that disposable vapes will get banned in the UK sometime during 2024, but not for the environment or recycling issues.

They are seen as too attractive and too tempting for the kids with the bright colours, sweet flavours and (although the 18 law), seemingly zero policing on the sale of use of them.

Our eldest (14) is at what we term as high school, and they are very popular before, during (on breaks, in the toilets etc) and after school.

Our youngest (9) is at what we call primary school, and some kids are claiming they are allowed to use them at home, and with knowledge of their parents - which I can believe based on the age of some of the kids I see on the streets with them.

I think the biggest problem with the kids is the parents, particularly if they came from a smoking background - (very stereotypically) people from a smoking background seem to view vaping as harmless, and therefore OK for everyone ... ?

Set up some indiscreet battery powered hunting cams along the route to see if you find "repeaters".

They would likely get spotted, and then pinched ...

WD

 

[WD Pro]

So, how much fun would 4.2 lbs of nitrous oxide get me in a coyote … ?

I had my hands full walking home today …

WD

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