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Guy makes “dodgy e-bike” from 130 used vapes to make point about e-waste (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Disposable vapes are indefensible. Many, or maybe most, of them contain rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, but manufacturers prefer to sell new ones. More than 260 million vape batteries are estimated to enter the trash stream every year in the UK alone. Vapers and vape makers are simply leaving an e-waste epidemic to the planet's future residents to sort out.

To make a point about how wasteful this practice is—and to also make a pretty rad project and video—Chris Doel took 130 disposable vape batteries (the bigger "3,500 puff" types with model 20400 cells) found littered at a music festival and converted them into a 48-volt, 1,500-watt e-bike battery, one that powered an e-bike with almost no pedaling more than 20 miles. You can see the whole build and watch Doel zoom along trails on his YouTube video.

Not the first Brit to do that this year as a chap in Kent made the news in June.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

I collect them to pull the battery out of.

I've got a bunch of rc pieces I'll probably never need due to simply not needing all 20 cables or whatever in the pack. So all my leftover jst connectors go to "old" lithium batteries, and I use them as little power banks for my phone, and arduino stuff.

They typically don't last too long, and range between 200-1000mah, but it's something that isn't "taking up space in a landfill or being crushed and setting something on fire"