Arrived in 2019 in tobacconists, they had made a place for themselves in the windows with their fruity flavors and their eye-catching color. Disposable electronic cigarettes called “puffs” will be banned in France, announced Elisabeth Borne at the microphone of RTL, Sunday, September 3.
The measure will be presented “soon” in the 2023-2028 anti-tobacco plan. Electronic cigarettes, although prohibited for sale to minors, have largely attracted young consumers. Beyond the health aspect, they were also decried for their environmental cost.
At a time of upgrading devices and reducing waste, the disposable electronic cigarette is like a UFO. For an average price of 8 euros, it offers an alternative, or a gateway for its detractors, to tobacco. After 500 vapes, the puff could not be refilled, and ended its short life in the trash.
Problem, this piece of plastic, and especially its battery containing about 0.15 g of lithium and heavy metals, cannot be recycled. A column entitled “The disposable puff electronic cigarette, an environmental and health scourge that must be banned urgently”, published in April 2023 in Le Monde, denounced “a new single-use electronic plastic product which is now found already as litter on the beaches”. She supported a bill tabled at the end of 2022 to ban single-use electronic cigarettes.
“The puff is an additional waste which comes on top of the 4,500 billion cigarette butts thrown away each year in nature”, pointed out the Alliance against tobacco, signatory of the platform. “While 72% of teens surveyed are aware that this product pollutes our planet, remember that the puff is made of plastic and a non-removable lithium battery, representing an immediate and long-term danger to our environment! »
A survey by three British media, dated July 2022, showed that two puffs are thrown every second in the UK. Over a year, the lithium lost is enough to make 1,200 electric car batteries. Apart from its impact on the environment, the lithium battery proves to be dangerous by starting fires when run over in a garbage truck or in a waste treatment plant.
