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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

#211

Post by Freedumbs »

smashed wrote: 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.

Based on your reply you haven't fully considered context. Smokers don't care about themselves or else they wouldn't smoke. As demonstrated by the article, you can see proof that they also don't care for the environment. What makes you think people who intentionally pay to kill themselves and then throw the waste on the ground instead of trash will ever recycle?

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

#212

Post by prmoustache »

parineum wrote: post #176
normie3000 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

People have been stealing and killing other people as many years if not longer. That doesn't mean you cannot do a bit of legislation and obtain some positive results against that.

I think not banning the cigarette and non reusable vape is the wrong solution but banning smoking in lots of public spaces has improved the situation, maybe not to curb consumption but at least non smokers can breath a little. I wish it would also applies to outdoors cafe/restaurant terraces too as smokers effectively ban to non smokers by spreading their poison around them. They could walk away for a couple of minutes to get their hit but they don't on purpose. There should be a radius around an outdoor terrace where smoking is effectively prohibited.

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

#213

Post by pjmlp »

smashed wrote: 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.

Most countries don't do enough at all.

For example Germany, while the country is famous for the whole splitting the garbage, I am still waiting after 20 years to see the kitchen oil recycling recipients as we have in Portugal.

As for electronics, I would say no one has anything in place, and human nature is as such that hardly anyone will drive to the next recycling center to deliver a single device that broke down, or call the city hall to collect it.

We should go back to the old days, when electronics were repairable, which naturally companies will lobby against, as that will break down the capitalistic curve of exponential growth in sales.

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

#214

Post by consp »

throw101010 wrote: post #71
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.

Switzerland has something like this for "eWaste", it's called the ARC [1] (Advance Recycling Contribution). For any electronic device you purchase a small tax is collected and used for the recycling and collection of the future waste it will generate. The collection mandatorily happens in the shops that sell electronic devices, you don't have to return them to the exact store where it was purchased, as long as they s…

Same here in the Netherlands. But only for larger appliances. Washing machines for instance. Smaller ones you have to be able to send for free but there are too many exceptions. My internet provider switched out the modems and simply said "it's yours now, for free!" Meaning: we don't want to pay for disposing of our inventory. I send it to their free postage address they use for broken items with a brick, since they are charged per kg.

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

#215

Post by walthamstow »

Quinner wrote: post #16
DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

We really need to ban these things.

The reason disposables are so popular in the US is the FDA banned any flavored cartridges, which doesn't include disposables. The immense battery waste is a direct result of a relatively new law.

That doesn't explain why vapes are so rife elsewhere, particularly the UK. They're popular because, as the FT described, they're the ultimate product. Cool, cheap and addictive.

https://www.ft.com/content/f72f17e4-a83d-4494-b1e7-a349cc7ae...

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

#216

Post by pjmlp »

teiferer wrote: post #146
tomcam wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was amazing being a kid back then because you could earn some decent coin returning bottles

Nowadays the homeless or other less-than-living-wage earners do that for us. You can see them everywhere in cities all over north america and europe if you pay attention.

As European that is not spread everywhere, while you can get some money back in Germany and Greece, there is none to be had in Portugal.

In Germany, it is such a big issue with people not having other source of income, that there is a culture where and how to leave the bottles around so that they are easier to collect.

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

#217

Post by pkolaczk »

pjmlp wrote: post #209
GeertB wrote: 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…

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 number. The latency is so huge I initially thought the machine was broken. I guess it’s not the chip problem but terrible programming due to developers thinking they don’t need to care about performance because their chip runs in megahertz.

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

#218

Post by tuetuopay »

lostlogin wrote: post #106
ch4s3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good intentions and lack of foresight often combine poorly.

The fault lies with vape manufacturers. It’s big tobacco. They are soulless ghouls.

Surprisingly, Big Tobacco does not really likes vapes because it's not them, and eats in their profit margin. If any, they lobby against vapes and specifically disposable vapes.

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

#219

Post by psychoslave »

It feels so odd to think that the human which is self poisoning with an electronic device that will be neglectedly thrown on public area is not that different from the one who would diligently bring it to a trash, even curiosity didn't jump in to enjoy analysis of the device.

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

#220

Post by computersuck »

pjmlp wrote: post #213
smashed wrote: 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.

Most countries don't do enough at all. For example Germany, while the country is famous for the whole splitting the garbage, I am still waiting after 20 years to see the kitchen oil recycling recipients as we have in Portugal. As for electronics, I would say no one has anything in place, and human nature is as such that hardly anyone will drive to the next recycling center to deliver a single device that broke down,…

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/
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