On April 16, the city council of Boise, Idaho, unanimously voted to ban the use of e-cigarettes in public places where cigarette smoking is already prohibited. In doing so, the city joins hundreds of other cities and 12 states to regulate e-cigarette use. The ban expands Boise’s Smokefree Air Act, which has been in place since 2011.

While air quality concerns are one of the primary reasons for the regulation of e-cigarettes in many areas, the waste generated by the devices may pose an even greater threat to our environment. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid made of propylene glycol, glycerin, and nicotine. Rather than producing smoke, e-cigarettes release a vapor that quickly dissipates into the air.

More than 58 million e-cigarettes and refills were sold in U.S. stores in 2015, and about 19 million were single-use devices. There is no national standard for e-cigarette disposal, and the majority of the devices end up in landfills. There, they can leach harmful chemicals into the ground, including nicotine and heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and bromine.

Electronic waste accounts for about 70 percent of heavy metals in landfills, and the rise of e-cigarette popularity in recent years only contributes further to the problem. When we factor in the addition of nicotine residue, it’s clear that e-cigarettes have a significant environmental impact.

The Lowdown on E-Cigs

E-cigarettes come in a variety of forms, from disposable single-use pens to larger sub-ohm devices meant to be refilled with nicotine oil, commonly known as “vape juice.” But the most popular form of e-cigarette is the Juul, a small rectangular device that resembles a USB flash drive and is refilled via pods. Each pod contains about 0.7 milliliters of juice, equivalent to approximately one pack of traditional cigarettes.

Juul represents about 75 percent of e-cigarette market sales, and the company is valued at $38 billion. In December 2018, the tobacco giant Altria, which also owns Marlboro, invested $12.8 billion in Juul in a move the company said would help “achieve tobacco harm reduction.” And studies do indeed show that e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

A 2017 U.K. study determined that exposure to carcinogens and other toxins was lower among e-cigarette users than smokers. Further, the cancer risk of e-cigarette users is just 1 percent of the risk facing tobacco smokers. E-cigarettes are also used as a smoking cessation method, but there is evidence that high numbers of teens are turning to vaping rather than smoking, leading many to refer to e-cigarettes as an “epidemic.”

Health Concerns

In fact, research indicates that teens who would otherwise never have smoked traditional cigarettes are now using e-cigarettes. Vaping among teens may also lead to cigarette smoking, according to University of Southern California research. At the end of the six-month study, 43% of students using e-cigarettes were smoking cigarettes at least three times per month..

Whether or not teens begin smoking cigarettes after vaping regularly, young people are using e-cigarettes at an alarming rate. E-cigarette use among U.S. 12th graders rose nearly 10 percent between 2017 and 2018, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). They also claim that 37.3 percent of teens used a vaping device in 2018. NIDA attributes the rise in teen vaping to “the marketable technology and flavorings seen in vaping devices.”

Vape juice is available in a wide variety of fruit- and candy-based flavors that are attractive to young people. What teens may not understand, however, is the harmful nature of nicotine, a key component of most vaping juice. The drug is a cardiovascular stimulant and highly addictive.

And while vaping is indeed less harmful than smoking tobacco cigarettes, the nicotine in e-cigarettes may lead to other health problems. For example, nicotine significantly impacts oral health. Nicotine reduces the amount of blood that can flow through your veins, leading to tooth decay and gum recession, as well as effectively masking the symptoms of gum disease. E-cigarette users can also experience frequent bouts of bad breath caused by bacteria buildup and a decrease in saliva.

Proper Disposal of E-Cigarettes

In discussions about e-cigarettes, teen use and air quality remain major talking points, but the environmental impact of e-cigarettes should not be overlooked. Currently, there is no way to recycle e-cigarettes or Juul pods in the U.S., and a Juul spokesperson recommends “following your city’s local recommendations for disposing of a lithium-polymer rechargeable battery,” reports Mashable. The spokesperson had no comment regarding the disposable Juul pods.

Some researchers, including Yogi H. Hendlin, have called for widespread policies regarding e-cigarette disposal, but no policies exist to date. Hendlin pointed to the significant environmental impact of cigarette butts — two-thirds of which are reportedly littered, resulting in $11 billion in annual cleanup costs in the U.S. alone — as reason to be concerned. E-cigarettes pose a dual environmental threat, as they both produce a significant amount of waste as well as a biohazard risk from their embedded lithium-ion batteries. There is little available information on the amount of waste generated from e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes may help those trying to quit smoking, but the devices are doing more harm than good, especially where the environment is concerned. More research is needed on the environmental impact of e-cigarette waste, but there is already cause for concern. For now, we can hope that e-cigarette bans in public spaces will help curb the growing number of people vaping and reduce the amount of waste generated by the industry.