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There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

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Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But usually paper and cardboard that has been in contact with food is not recyclable because it contaminates the batch. That's why pizza boxes also cannot go into the cardboard/paper fraction.

No, that's because pizza boxes are contaminated with fat. That messes up the paper recycling process. Water is fine.

Man, if that's the problem then I can only assume any fast food box is not recyclable too?

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#222
post #3

Many countries have deposits for single use bottles/cans but an electronic device with a lipo battery is seen as perfectly fine to throw away. These things should have 100 times the deposit amount of a can of soda with mandatory requirements for retailers to take the 'empties' back.

Why though? Bottles/cans are easily recycled and I believe the small reimbursement is easily recovered during the recycling costs. It's not profitable to recycle small electronic devices otherwise you'd see heaps of shops doing it. It's toxic, hazardous and labour intensive. 100 times the deposit amount would be like $5-10 USD per-device which is insane. I do agree that any retailers should be required to take back e…

It's very profitable to recycle small electronics in some economies where thousands of companies do it (eg India or Shenzhen); in countries where human labour is more expensive, it's untenable

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#223
post #74
post #3

Many countries have deposits for single use bottles/cans but an electronic device with a lipo battery is seen as perfectly fine to throw away. These things should have 100 times the deposit amount of a can of soda with mandatory requirements for retailers to take the 'empties' back.

The problem is you can’t find any company willing to recycle them. Because of the nicotine content, I’ve heard e-waste recyclers consider them hazardous waste and refuse to touch them.

vape products does not all contain nicotine, it's an ingredient you choose to add in your blend,

you can choose to either vape a flavour version only, or one containing a certain amount of nicotine

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#224
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Now that it is a pity that when people talk about saving the planet everyone keeps rushing to dispoable electronics, what serves me to go by bycicle to w…

> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…

What can you expect, when people assume as normal shipping the browser alongside the "native" application, and scripting languages using an interpreter are used in production code?

Maybe that ticket machine was coded in MicroPython. /s

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go on, give us some numbers. Because 7Bn people multiplied by a few kg/year doesn't seem trivial to me, but sounds like you can prove it.

The main thing about plastic is that it’s made from oil, and oil already exists in the ground. Putting it back into the ground is basically neutral minus the pollution involved in manufacturing.

It doesn't go "back in the ground" though, does it? It gets scattered all over the ecology. When you take something that was buried deep and scatter it all over the surface - especially when that something is oil - that's usually considered an ecological disaster. Deepwater Horizon, the worst oil spill in history, has had catastrophic effects on the local wildlife, and it is still dwarfed in scale by the amount of plastic annually strewn to the four corners of the Earth.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#226
post #72

For these devices the microcontroller needs to be super cheap. Microcontrollers like the Puya PY32 Series (e.g., PY32C642, PY32F002/F030) can cost in the $0.02 - $0.05 range for the kind of many-million volumes applicable for disposable vapes. These are 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 MCUs, running at a 24 MHz clock or similar, some with 24 KB of ROM and maybe 3 KB of RAM! To put into context: this is 3x the ROM/RAM of the ZX81…

How close are we to smart dust I wonder? How small can we make wireless communications?

> How close are we to smart dust I wonder? How small can we make wireless communications?

There's two limiting factors for 'smart dust': power (batteries are the majority weight and volume of this vape), and antennae (minimum size determined by wavelength of carrier wave).

I believe you can fit an NFC module in a 5x5mm package, but that does externalize the power supply.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go further. Every product must be returned to manufacturer at end of life. Any items found by garbage program will be collected and returned to manufacturer at cost. All items sold in country must be identifiable for this purpose. Importers are considered the manufacturers and must retrofit products. Then we would be getting closer to capturing the total burden to society.

You're thinking disposable vapes, but this will apply to quality of life appliances like washing machines as well, right? Do you want to live in a world where only the rich can afford washing machines? Incidentally, I don't know what you do, but once in a while I throw (carefully, li-ion batteries) my broken electronics in the trunk and bring them to the local collection center.

The EU and UK already require sellers to recycle electronics, and we can still afford washing machines. Here is Amazon's page:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI...

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#228
post #4

"I Powered My House Using 500 Disposable vapes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU

Man. I don't actually know anyone who vapes. I see it in public sometimes and just assumed people refilled them - maybe they do. Seeing him hold some up, seeing all that plastic, metal, electronics, all that Work (Joules) expended, in something that you just dump after a day is nuts. I can't think of anything else like that. Maybe plastic water bottles but they don't have even half the materials or complexity? Maybe I under-estimate how much is put into regular cigarettes or beer & cans.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#229
post #72

For these devices the microcontroller needs to be super cheap. Microcontrollers like the Puya PY32 Series (e.g., PY32C642, PY32F002/F030) can cost in the $0.02 - $0.05 range for the kind of many-million volumes applicable for disposable vapes. These are 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 MCUs, running at a 24 MHz clock or similar, some with 24 KB of ROM and maybe 3 KB of RAM! To put into context: this is 3x the ROM/RAM of the ZX81…

> [...] while the cost of the processor is 2 - 3 orders of magnitudes less.

Is that inflation adjusted? If not, the real cost difference is even starker.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#230
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Now that it is a pity that when people talk about saving the planet everyone keeps rushing to dispoable electronics, what serves me to go by bycicle to w…

> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…

Or maybe they think they should be sending each keystroke to a server and waiting for the response.
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