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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

#171

Post by jaggederest »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #114
jaggederest wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop there? I think more or less every non-durable product manufacturer (say, lifespan less than 5 years) should be required to take the product back at end of life and dispose of it properly. Trash is an enormous externality. I'm talking about plastic clamshells, container lids, "disposable" storage containers, the lot.

Mechanism design for better trash economics is hard for the same reasons that making a good linearly typed programming language is hard. I'm not kidding :)

It's funny because I'm working on a type theory first toy language as we speak... so you're not wrong, but I'm also foolish enough to be ambitious.

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

#174

Post by geysersam »

lend000 wrote: post #69
pyrolistical wrote: post #43

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.

I don't hate the idea. But if you think it through, it's intractable. You need to 2x+ the transportation cost of all products (it will cost more to get them back for multiple reasons, including products not being as neatly packaged and often going from many-to-one transportation to many-to-many). Companies also need to double their specializations and adopt recycling processes that will largely be redundant with othe…

Why would 2x the transportation cost be intractable, but ruining the environment, killing life in the oceans, destroying the basis of our future food production, etc, be tractable?

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

#175

Post by Earw0rm »

hippo22 wrote: post #156
Earw0rm wrote: post #120

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.

Right, but there's ground and there's ground.

Geological strata vs shallow landfill sitting above aquifers and subject to near-term erosion.

Disposing of this stuff in deep mines seems like it'd be fine, unfortunately we haven't yet, at a society/economy level, found the discipline to do so. Presumably after a few mya of heat and pressure it'll be indistinguishable from other petrochemicals (which aren't particularly nice to begin with).

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

#176

Post by parineum »

normie3000 wrote: post #117
parineum wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition works to stop some people. It doesn't stop addicts from craving and it doesn't curb the appeal of the product. People who think tobacco/nicotine bans would work are people who think they don't have any positive effect associated with them. People don't smoke because the evil cigarette companies tricked them and now they are addicted. It's a drug, it feels good to do it. A tobacco/nicotine ban will end up…

> People don't smoke because the evil cigarette companies tricked them and now they are addicted. Isn't this exactly what happens, and why cigarette advertising is banned in many countries, and why marketing child-friendly tobacco products is commonly restricted, and why there are even regulations/guidelines around portrayal of smoking on TV in some regions?

People have been smoking for thousands of years.

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

#177

Post by xigoi »

kochikame wrote: post #125
SeanAnderson wrote: post #111

I still think the next evolution of these vapes is for a Tamagotchi-esque device to get built into them and to have the pet grow when you inhale through it. You're already walking around with enough tech - why not gamify it more?

I think you might be joking but OK, I'll respond like you're serious as this is HN. You want to make vaping even more addictive than it already is?

They’re making a prediction, not a value judgement.

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

#179

Post by vasco »

rjh29 wrote: post #164
adrianN wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make matters worse, recycling is a scam (with a small handful of exceptions).

Varies widely across country and the type of thing you're recycling. People are so extreme with recycling, it's either "recycle everything!" or "it's a scam, just chuck it all in the garbage"

It varies very widely indeed. In some countries it isn't a scam because it gets burned like Denmark but other than that majority of recycling just means shipping it to a landfill in a poor country that they promise to recycle.

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

#180

Post by globular-toast »

Is this actually disposable if it has the rechargeable battery and display? Or is it maybe like a lighter that technically can be refilled but nobody ever does?

It's so curious why these things are addictive. Before I tried a vape (it was called an e-cigarette back then) I thought the addictive thing about cigarettes is the nicotine. That's part of it, but a huge part (possibly even bigger) is just the sensation of sucking in smoke/vapour from a little stick and exhaling it. Is it similar to sucking on a mother's teat or something? It really seems to satisfy in a way nothing else does.

In the UK truly disposable vapes are banned, thankfully, but I do wonder if it's now just "technically refillable" ones that people use one time. They should be taxed to the eyeballs to encourage reuse if so.

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