CasuallyLoaded is an Australian recycling startup manufacturing rechargeable powerbanks by breathing new life into the lithium-ion batteries found inside single-use vapes. Using their EcoSig initiative, they collect discarded devices from nightlife venues and process them, saving mountains of practically brand-new batteries from a future in landfill.
An Unsustainable Waste Problem
Over the past four years, vaping has seen a global meteoric rise in popularity. However, the expensive, rechargeable, and refillable vapes of yesterday have been replaced by sealed, single-use, supposedly disposable devices. This global shift in vape design, although more convenient for users and highly profitable for manufacturers, has created a new e-waste problem.
At the core of this problem are lithium-ion batteries, which power nearly all modern electronics, from smartphones and laptops to EVs and mining equipment, lithium-ion batteries provide a versatile, rechargeable, and lasting source of portable power. Unfortunately, this also makes them the perfect candidate for use within modern disposable vapes.
This is a tragic waste of these batteries’ potential, as it means every single-use, disposable, and most importantly non-rechargeable vape sold around the world, now incorporates a brand-new, fully-rechargeable, and reusable lithium-ion battery. With millions of vapes being sold, used, and tossed into landfill annually in Australia alone, the scale of this problem becomes worryingly clear.
The Environmental Impact of Vaping
Using a brand-new rechargeable lithium-ion battery once and then throwing it away is obviously wasteful, but to grasp the scale of this wastefulness, let’s make some comparisons. Focusing on Australia, where CasuallyLoaded is based, we’ll assume only 0.5% of the Australian population (130,000 people) actively consume and discard one disposable vape per week.
After crunching the numbers, they show roughly 6,760,000 disposable vapes, each containing a brand-new lithium-ion battery, end up in Australian landfills each year. For comparison, a Tesla Model Y contains 4,680 lithium-ion batteries. Therefore, the amount of vape batteries being wasted is equivalent to scrapping 1,444 Tesla Model Y vehicles after just one drive.
While this comparison makes some assumptions and isn’t entirely accurate as Tesla batteries are slightly larger than those found inside vapes, it effectively conveys the enormous scale at which healthy, new, and reusable lithium-ion batteries are ending up buried in Australian landfills, just because of their use within vapes.
A Sustainable Solution
Unfortunately, vapes don’t seem to be going away anytime soon, and manufacturers will continue to use lithium-ion batteries to make them. But fortunately, a small Australian startup called CasuallyLoaded, has been tackling this problem head-on since September 2022.
Using their EcoSig vape recycling initiative, they provide nightlife venues and other high-foot-traffic locations across major cities in their home state of Queensland a service called EcoSig. This service gives participating venues free 3D-printed vape recycling bins, allowing staff and patrons to sustainably dispose of any depleted, littered, or confiscated vapes.
The collected vapes are then safely dismantled, and their batteries are recovered, cleaned, tested, and thanks to their small, lightweight design remanufactured by CasuallyLoaded into rechargeable portable powerbanks. The recovered metal and plastics are also recycled using traditional means.
Their method allows the still-brand-new vape batteries to be directly repurposed into a new product, eliminating the need for second-stage battery recycling. This also enables the batteries to be continually recharged and used for their entire lifespan, while offering environmentally conscious consumers sustainably made powerbanks and portable chargers.
To learn more about CasuallyLoaded, check out the powerbanks they make using recycled vape batteries, or get in contact with them to ask any further questions, head over to: https://casuallyloaded.com/
