Disposable E-Cigarettes: Inside the Lithium-ion Battery Controversy

History of E-Cigarettes

Chinese Pharmacist Hon Lik created the first e-cigarette in 2003. In 2004, an e-cigarette company called Smoking Everywhere developed the first disposable vape. The “Exhale” was a small disposable that did not achieve the same success as its successors, but it started a chain reaction that led to the development of popular devices such as Elf Bars and JUUL.

Despite having being around for at least a decade, vapes only made waves in the U.S. in the 2010s. The invention of JUUL skyrocketed e-cigarettes into the public consciousness.

The Rise of the Vape Industry

The rise of the vape industry has been nothing short of meteoric.

From 2018 to 2021, the number of vapers across the globe doubled.

Popularity of Disposable Vapes

To be clear, disposables aren’t the only sources of lithium-ion batteries. Cell phones, tablets, laptops, and even toothbrushes contain these batteries. However, the sudden spike in the popularity of disposables has massively contributed to the demand for lithium-ion batteries.

Disposables steadily picked up steam in the 2010s, but it wasn’t until 2020 that this type of e-cigarette really hit its stride. According to one study, disposables accounted for a significant portion of e-cigarette sales from January 2020 to December 2022⁴.

The same study also found:

Overall monthly e-cigarette sales increased from 15.5 million to 22.7 million, a 46.6% increase
The number of vape brands increased from 184 to 269, a 46.2% increase
Sales of prefilled e-cigarettes decreased from 75.2% to 48%
The market share of disposable e-cigarettes increased from 24.7% to 51.8%

The study also identified Vuse, JUUL, Elf Bar, NJOY, and Breeze Smoke as the top-selling brands in December 2020, indicating that the vape community was already turning its attention to disposables.

The Rise of Lithium-ion Batteries

The first commercial lithium-ion battery was sold in 1991. This is in stark contrast to lead-acid batteries, which were first invented in 1860.

Vape manufacturers started switching to lithium-ion batteries in the mid-2010s. Lithium-ion batteries have high currents, high energy density, and most importantly, no memory effect. Lithium-ion batteries are capable of reaching the currents needed to vaporize e-liquid and they last eight or more cycles longer than lead batteries.

Battery Memory Effect Explained

The battery memory effect is a problem that affects rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries. It happens when vapers remove their device before it has recharged completely. Over time, the battery will only charge to that lower amount, despite having the capacity to reach 100% charge.

Lithium-ion batteries don’t suffer from the battery memory effect, which makes them ideal for rechargeable e-cigarettes. Although disposable manufacturers don’t need to avoid the battery memory effect, lithium-ion batteries have still become the norm.

Lithium-ion Batteries: Key Facts

Between 2000 and 2015, the demand for lithium increased by 30x⁵ and is expected to increase another 1000% from 2015 to 2025.
Lithium-ion batteries contain dangerous metals such as nickel and cobalt, which can leech into waterways.
In the UK alone, 1.3 million single-use e-cigarettes are thrown away every week⁶. This equates to approximately 10 tons of lithium taken to landfills each year, equivalent to 1,200 electric vehicles.

The Salts Flat Brine

One of the most popular ways to extract lithium is via brine extraction. Manufacturers pump large amounts of water into salt flats, which are large areas of flat land that are covered in salt. This process forces saltwater to the surface. When the saltwater evaporates, lithium is filtered out.

Lithium Mining: Environmental Concerns

The process of extracting lithium and cobalt is very energy intensive, leading to concerns over air and water pollution, disruption to wildlife, and land degradation. A raw materials expert at Vulvan Energy Resources estimated that every ton of mined lithium equates to 15 tons of CO2 in the air⁷.

One of the most concerning aspects of the environmental impact of lithium mining is the water consumption. Lithium mining consumes more than 65% of the water in the Andean Mountains⁸, better known as the Lithium Triangle.

This is a global problem. More than four billion gallons of water have been pumped out of the Silver Peak lithium mine in Nevada every year since 2020⁹. To make matters worse, companies outside the U.S. have already enacted plans for an additional 28 lithium mines within 50 miles of the existing Silver Peak mine.

A group of researchers identified “lithium mining activities as one of the major stressors to the local environmental degradation.” ¹⁰The locals, wildlife, and plantlife are robbed of water, and the water they do have is corrupted by harmful chemicals.

Lithium Mining: Ecological Concerns

One study found that lithium extraction has caused groundwater levels to drop in South America¹¹, disrupting wetland ecosystems and the species dependent on them.

Research from the Proceedings of the Royal Society found that lithium mining was “negatively correlated with the abundance of two of the three flamingo species”¹² in the Salar de Atacama area in Chile. Researchers concluded that “efforts to slow the expansion of mining and the impacts of climate change are, therefore, urgently needed to benefit local biodiversity and the local human economy that depends on it.”

Although little research has been conducted into the impact of lithium mining on wildlife, we can assume that the large-scale rigs displace animals, destroy habitats, and disrupt natural food chains.

Lithium Mining: A Humanitarian Crisis

Lithium mining also comes with a great deal of ethical concerns, most notably the displacement and exploitation of vulnerable communities in developing countries. Child labor, forced labor, and other human rights violations are among the problems that these communities face.

Communities in Chile and Bolivia have been subject to Green Imperialism, which happens when indigenous people are displaced from their communities so that other parties can extract resources. Earlier this year, hundreds of protestors blocked access to the Atacama salt flat (the world’s largest lithium deposit) to stop local firm SQM and U.S. firm ALB.N from extracting lithium¹³.

Cobalt Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Cobalt is an essential piece of the puzzle for disposable e-cigarette manufacturers. Inside lithium-ion batteries, the cobalt cathode promises high stability and energy density. But, like many of the materials that go into these batteries, cobalt comes at a human cost.

Relative to lithium, cobalt is nowhere near as environmentally damaging. Regardless, the human factor remains.

In 2006, The Washington Post reported on The Cobalt Pipeline¹⁴, starting from the very first step in the cobalt supply chain. The report follows Mayamba, a 35-year-old family man in South Africa who spends his days and nights mining for cobalt.

With only a metal shovel and a broken-headed hammer, Mayamba mines for the cobalt that will eventually power disposable vapes across the globe. He has no hard hat or other protective equipment so, like a lot of miners, he is at constant risk of injury or death.

At the time of writing, The Washington Post estimated that 100,000 people across the Congo worked as cobalt miners. Now, the number is estimated to have reached 200,000¹⁵.

Cobalt Mining Causes Birth Defects

Research shows that people living in the “copperbelt” (which spans from Zambia to the Congo) are at a higher risk of birth defects, menstrual issues, and other health problems.

In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers studied 138 newborns with visible birth defects and 108 control newborns in Katanga, a southern part of the Congo. It found that paternal occupational mining exposure was the factor most strongly associated with birth defects¹⁶.

“Although it’s still not clear how these birth defects arise, every day tens of thousands of workers are exposed to heavy work with a lot of pollutants and dust,”¹⁷ said Van Brusselen, a pediatrician at Ghent University who contributed to the study. “The health of the miners and their families must be taken into account by anyone who profits from or uses cheap smartphones around the world.”

Although research into the association between cobalt mining and birth defects is still in its infancy, other studies show that this mining practice has a very real human impact.

In March of this year, the UK-based human rights group Rights & Accountability in Development (Raid) and the Kinshasa-based NGO Afrewatch released a 110-page report on the impact of cobalt mining¹⁸. The investigation spanned 19 months and involved fieldwork across 25 villages and towns in close proximity to five of the largest cobalt and copper mines globally.

Here are the findings.

99% of interviewees had a reduced fish and crop yield
75% reported they can no longer afford healthcare
59% reported schooling for their children
72% reported skin and dermatological problems

The report also shows that cobalt mining has a serious impact on the next generation of locals.

56% of interviewees reported increased gynecological and reproductive health problems for women
14% reported increased gynecological problems for girls and teenagers

Researchers concluded that cobalt mining regions in the Congo are turning into “sacrifice zones”, a term coined by the United Nations that describes areas that are contaminated by outside, unwanted forces, often leading to severe health problems for the inhabitants.

Lithium-ion Batteries: Recycling Rate

Each disposable e-cigarette contains an e-liquid chamber, a heating coil, and a lithium battery. It is difficult enough to disassemble and recycle the other elements, but lithium-ion batteries present a new kind of problem.

Lithium batteries are recyclable, but only 5% of lithium-ion batteries around the globe are recycled¹⁹. In contrast, lead batteries have a 99% recycling rate²⁰. Recycling lithium-ion batteries is time-consuming, and the large-scale processes necessary to separate each element use a lot of energy.

Lithium-ion Batteries: Hazards

When lithium-ion batteries aren’t recycled, they end up in landfill sites. From 2017 to 2020, one landfill in the Pacific Northwest reported 124 fires due to lithium-ion batteries²¹.

Scott Butler, the Executive Director behind the recycling organization Material Focus, said, “They can [catch fire] very fast and very hard, and if they go in the back of a waste vehicle, which they have done, that waste is fuel for that fire.”²²

If the cobalt, nickel, and manganese inside lithium-ion batteries leach out of landfills, there is a high chance that they will contaminate local water supplies.

Changing Technologies and Hope for the Future

Across the globe, environmentally-minded individuals are pioneering alternative ways to source lithium. In the UK and Germany, groups are developing environmentally responsible Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technologies, most notably by extracting geothermal waters from the granite rocks underneath Cornwall²³.

In 2019, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced the launch of the department’s first lithium-ion battery recycling R&D center, the ReCell Center. The Director of the program, Jeffrey S. Spangenberger, aims to make the process of recycling lithium-ion batteries competitive and profitable. He hopes that this will reduce the reliance on foreign sources of battery materials.

At the same time, the Department of Energy also announced the Battery Recycling Prize. This program, which benefits from $5.5 million of backing, encourages entrepreneurs to find ways to sustainably collect, store, and transport lithium-ion batteries to recycling centers.

In hopes of eliminating the human and environmental impact of cobalt, researchers have started to develop cobalt-free batteries. Lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) is a promising alternative, but it only has half the energy density of batteries that contain cobalt. Still, some car manufacturers have already made the switch.

Final Thoughts

Love them or hate them, disposables are here to stay. Lithium-ion batteries are one of the lesser-known evils of disposables. Like a lot of environmental concerns, the ill impacts of lithium and cobalt mining have been pushed down the list of importance, far behind public health and youth uptake.

From mine to landfill, the lifecycle of a lithium-ion battery is fraught with ecological, ethical, and environmental dilemmas. Even if researchers find a viable alternative, there is no guarantee that vape brands will embrace it. The lithium-ion battery supply chain is already in place and, if history is anything to go by, environmental campaigners will have to fight tooth and nail to dismantle it.

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