Veolia Launches Vape Recycling Service in the UK

Today, on April 28, it was reported that resource management company Veolia has launched a nationwide e-cigarette collection service in the UK to help provide safe disposal and recycling options for the 3 million e-cigarettes currently discarded each week in the country.

Veolia stated that it can now facilitate the collection and transportation of e-cigarette products from retailers to recycling facilities to extract valuable materials, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese.

Recycling these items can save over 10 tons of lithium, which can be recovered from batteries for new products, reducing carbon emissions by up to 72 tons compared to using raw materials, as producing one ton of lithium from ore generates approximately 9 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, according to local retailers in Scotland.

Collections will be scheduled based on demand, and to safely store and transport these materials, Veolia will provide retailers with separate vermiculite containers, a mineral that minimizes the fire risk of lithium-ion batteries in e-cigarettes.

"Two e-cigarettes are thrown away every second. They may be called disposable products, but they can and should be recycled," said Don Macphail, Veolia's Chief Operating Officer in the UK. "Our new nationwide e-cigarette collection service will provide a safe recycling route for retailers offering mandatory e-cigarette recycling programs and ensure we can extract the valuable materials contained within while mitigating any fire and environmental risks."