• FishFace@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    They’re so obviously unnecessary I’m surprised more places haven’t banned them. They’re also new, so conservatives should instinctively hate them.

    We need a more generic approach to throwaway culture: the societal cost of disposing of things needs to be embedded in the price of those things. But in the case of vapes, I don’t see how that can have a big impact: reusable vape pens only seem to be about twice the cost of a disposable, so anyone who is even remotely thinking rationally about price would be getting reusable ones.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      They’ve exploded in popularity in the US since the FDA absolutely decimated the market for juice and mod manufacturers. They want everyone back on cigarettes and will stop at nothing to accomplish it.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’d kinda like to see standards for vapes written so we can invent/install refill stations. Making things easier for people cuts the demand for undesirable outcomes like excess waste.

      Disposable vapes are massively convenient but the waste is truly excessive and awful.

      • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Regular pod devices are already ridiculously easy to use and maintain. You fill it and charge it. New pod every 1-2 weeks, a 30ml bottle of juice will last you around a month. There’s no need for refill stations or anything like that. If ypu were still allowed to buy juice and pods at a gas station (in the US) they’d be more easily accessible but that’s about it. Where I’m from at least there’s a smoke.shop on damn near every corner though so there still isn’t that much of a barrier

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You fill it and charge it.

          While I am certainly into this idea, the market has clearly shown high demand for disposable vapes. Beating that market in convenience factor would be the intent.

          If ypu were still allowed to buy juice and pods at a gas station (in the US) they’d be more easily accessible but that’s about it.

          I’d strongly support this legislation tho

          • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            I’m not trying to be an ass or anything, I just couldn’t find a better way to phrase this. Have you ever used a vape, disposable or not? Having a designated place to swap out disposables would be more of a hindrance than using pod systems. I’m honestly not even sure how that could be structured. The most popular disposables are already rechargeable and people already do that task for themselves. Refilling is a ~10 second endeavor in pod systems. And I’m not even sure how you could go about reusing disposables on a sanitary level. You can’t replace the mouth peices and many of them are very poorly built. The juce leaks into the electronics and can cause all sorts of problems.

            In order to make this feasible you’d basically have to implement a reusable pod system that people just walk into the shop and swap out for a freshly filled pod when theirs dies out. This would dramatically increase the costs associated with pod systems.

            My vape cost me $18, a pack of 4 pods costs $10, and a bottle of juice is ~$15 on average. $43 in total, or a little over the cost of 2 disposables. Disposables are only good for a week max, usually less. For a month of vaping (including the cost of a new vape) it cost me the price of 2 weeks in disposables. Ignoring the cost of the vape and only worrying about pods and juice, you get a months worth of nicotine for less than the price of one disposable. It’s not really a convenience problem because reusable vapes are already more convenient and cost effective than disposables. It’s not even a flavor or strength thing. Most disposable brands sell bottles of their flavors at the strengths they come in in the disposables. It’s just people making poor consumer choices, it’s as easy and cheap as it’s ever been to use a reusable pod system. It can get even cheaper by ordering online.

            Not to say there isn’t room for improvement, I mentioned the gas station thing earlier and there used to be a lot of shops that made their own juice and you could order custom bottles with varying flavors, strengths, and vg/pg ratio. I’d like to see those return but there was a lot of restrictions passed in the last few years that have made it exceedingly difficult and cost prohibitive to do. You also used to be able to make your own juice at home but it’s illegal to ship concentrated nicotine to individuals now. There’s plenty of areas to fix but convenience isn’t one of them

            • FishFace@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              And I’m not even sure how you could go about reusing disposables on a sanitary level. You can’t replace the mouth peices.

              That would be the point of setting standards. What the other person is saying is that if you just have to take your old vape back to get a nice discount on your new disposable vape, lots of people would do it. And if there were standards to ensure even disposable vapes could be refilled and reused safely, then they could be put back into circulation instead of into landfill.

              The mouth pieces needn’t be replaceable either - they just need to be made to survive sanitisation.

              • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                I see what you’re saying, I just think the barriers to making that feasible are a bit too steep to see widespread adoption. Something absolutely needs to be done about it and something like a core charge/deposit for disposables wouldn’t be a bad call. I don’t think bans are the way to go for most things but perhaps standards for reusable pod systems may be better. It would lower the barrier to entry and make things a bit more accessible to people who just want nicotine and don’t want to think about it. And that way you wouldn’t have to fuss with sterilizing and repackaging disposables, not that it’s a bad thing/not worth doing. There would still be a fair bit of waste but it’d put it more on par with pod systems

                • FishFace@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Well there are two ways to get people to do the right thing: carrot and stick. At the moment as you’ve pointed out, the carrot is in favour of reusable vapes anyway. So unless the carrot can be made even more enticing, it has to be the stick, i.e. bans.