Ecigs Fighting Putin
Russia invaded the Ukraine back in February and it resulted in death, destruction, and human displacement – but how are vapes helping the fightback?
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by Dave Cross
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Disposable vapes have become a highly contentious issue in the United Kingdom. On one side, a lot of traditional vapers and retailers are concerned about the environmental damage caused by the single-use plastics and the toxic components such as the lithium-ion cells. In January, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced that it was launching a consultation looking at the plastic pollution of the environment caused by disposable vapes.
On the other, cessation experts say disposables are powering a huge wave of quitters who value the simplicity and convenience of the devices.
Planet of the Vapes has covered the excellent measures taken by some disposable vape manufacturers. For example, Riot Labs launched the United Kingdom’s first “carbon negative” disposable vape, using sustainable materials and supporting recycling initiatives, at the beginning of 2022.
Now we hear that disposables are offering up a genuine solution to a problem being encountered in Ukraine.
Ukraine was using modified drones to drop explosives on Russian soldiers, letting loose a hand grenade at a tank or other vehicle. The problem came down to powering the flying devices.
Initially, they thought that disposable batteries would able to be recharged – but after stripping them down they found that not to be the case.
PhD student Maksym Sheremet and his organisation Drone Lab told The Independent: “We started collecting e-cigarettes after the price of lithium batteries really rose a month ago. Lithium batteries used to cost $1 each but went up five times in price adding significantly to our costs. So, we started powering dropping systems from the batteries in disposable e-cigarettes. It’s free, easy to repurpose and environmentally friendly because we are recycling.”
“In the last 20 days, we’ve made 100 drone dropping systems using e-cigarette batteries and have another 100 in progress. We have 2,000 orders in the pipeline.”
Not quite the life-saving aspect to vaping that anyone would have anticipated, but one that looks to become quite important as costs continue to rise and imports struggle to cross the border.
Photo Credit:
Photo by Don Fontijn on Unsplash
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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