British scientists are campaigning to ban electronic cigarettes because they contain too much precious metal

British scientists advocated the banning of disposable electronic cigarettes in the columns of the journal Science: they argued that such devices generate an incredible amount of waste, including waste that can lose valuable lithium and other rare earth metals, reports EurekAlert. The open letter was written by experts in environmental science, materials science, marine biology, consumer behavior and ethics from Abertay University, Dundee University, University College London and Plymouth University.

The number of disposable cigarettes sold in the UK will quadruple between 2022 and 2023, with consumers throwing away around 5 million devices every week.

The situation is no better in the United States, where 4.5 disposable cigarettes end up in the trash every second. The problem, scientists say, is slowly spreading around the world.

Disposable e-cigarettes and other single-use products, including mini fans and earphones, often contain valuable resources such as lithium and other rare-earth metals, the researchers said. These elements are increasingly important to green industries such as electric vehicle production, and their use in such devices reduces their global availability.

Not to mention that Europe is famously poor in such resources. Recently, the world press was famous for the resistance of a small Portuguese village, because they want to open a lithium mine next to Covas do Barrosso. The European Commission recently adopted the first version of the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which aims to “ensure the European Union’s access to a safe, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials”. Because of the green transition, the continent’s need for raw materials will increase drastically in the near future, but the problem is that most of it is currently covered by imports, often from third-country suppliers who are in a monopoly position. According to World Bank forecasts, the demand for such minerals will increase by 500 percent by 2050.

The European Union and indeed the entire developed world in many of these critically important raw materials depends, for example From China, the country produces 86 percent of the world’s rare earth reserves, which in turn are a key component of car batteries essential for the green transition.

Achieving net zero emissions – when a country, city, or company only emits as much greenhouse gas as it can absorb – is a particularly resource-rich path: for example, to build an electric car, six times more of these critical raw materials are needed on average than to build a conventional car.

E-cigarettes are often marketed as recyclable and sold without clear instructions, offering consumers minimal incentive to dispose of unused vapes in appropriate locations. To solve this problem, researchers call for urgent reform of disposable electronic devices to avoid resource depletion and environmental pollution.