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Since the UK banned single-use vapes in June over well being and environmental considerations, Viacheslav Semeniuk has had his work minimize out extracting hundreds of batteries from the gadgets to ship to Ukraine, the place they’re made into energy banks for frontline troops.
The Ukrainian volunteer, who has lived in Leeds, a metropolis in northern England, for the previous decade, says UK producers of e-cigarettes “can’t promote them anymore so mainly we’re simply serving to to make [manufacturers and retailers’] lives simpler, as a result of they should do one thing with them.”
A latest supply of 4 pallets of brand name new vapes to the Leeds Ukrainian Community Association, which Semeniuk co-founded in 2022, provides as much as greater than 10,000 particular person gadgets which he and a small band of volunteers are at the moment working by.
“We collect collectively in my home or whoever’s home it’s after which we sit possibly watching a film or consuming wine,” Semeniuk says of the periods breaking down vape pens. “It’s like a household night.”
Elsewhere within the UK, entrepreneur Tom Nabielec has collected undesirable vapes to be donated to the Ukrainian Social Club in London, which additionally ships batteries to Ukraine. He confirmed to RFE/RL that disposable e-cigarettes are actually comparatively simple to supply from outlets freed from cost. “It prices [retailers] cash to recycle in any other case and right here within the UK they need to by regulation.”
Nabielec says he was given vapes from one retail outlet, which quickly “unfold the phrase to the opposite outlets of their small chain” concerning the potential to donate stockpiles to Ukrainian charities.
Semeniuk says the vapes are damaged down within the UK to keep away from customs charges when travelling by Europe and into Ukraine, a lesson realized the laborious means when one cargo of e-cigarettes that had not been dismantled was turned again on the Dutch border. The driver, “needed to return from the Netherlands to Leeds to unload them after which flip round and drive again once more,” the Ukrainian says.
Transporting probably resellable vape gadgets internationally requires tax charges and in depth importation paperwork. However, “waste” merchandise similar to packing containers of unfastened batteries that Semeniuk and different volunteers are extracting will be carried throughout borders with out such bureaucratic friction.
The batteries are taped up for the journey throughout Europe to cut back the chance of fireside that may happen when uncovered battery terminals contact and quick circuit.
Once inside Ukraine, the batteries are glued into 3D-printed energy financial institution shells by groups which Semeniuk works with in Lviv. The rugged, rechargeable completed product options mutiple energy shops. Frontline troopers use the powerbanks for “no matter USB-powered gadgets there are,” Semeniuk says.
On the Russian aspect of the continued warfare in Ukraine, vape customers are being requested to donate e-cigarettes for his or her batteries and wiring. “One e-cigarette = one drop from a drone onto the enemy!” one poster in a college within the southwestern Russian metropolis of Samara proclaimed. Small servomotors used to drop munitions from drones will be powered by a single disposable vape battery.
Use of e-cigarettes has exploded over the previous decade, with an estimated 100 million customers worldwide. The gadgets, which warmth nicotine-containing liquid to provide vapor, are regarded as much less dangerous than cigarettes however nonetheless carry vital well being dangers. The UK authorities flagged the environmental problems with single-use vapes as a significant factor in banning the gadgets.
According to one report, e-cigarettes discarded within the UK annually comprise sufficient lithium to create 5,000 electrical automotive batteries.
