Old Goat
Administrator
California has finally looked at the disposable-vape business model and asked the question every sensible person should have asked years ago:
Why the hell are we manufacturing lithium batteries specifically to throw them away?
Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 762 on 28 September. From 1 January 2027, affected single-use vapes may no longer be imported into or manufactured for sale in California. Retail sale and distribution stop from 1 January 2028.
Before the usual panic wagon overturns, this is not a ban on vaping.
The actual bill text targets tobacco or nicotine vaping devices that are not designed for reuse and are either not refillable or not rechargeable. Refillable kits, replaceable pods, tanks, RDAs and ordinary reusable mods remain outside the ban. Cannabis products are also excluded.
In other words, California has not outlawed the screwdriver. It has outlawed the screwdriver with the handle welded to one screw and instructions to throw the whole bloody thing away afterwards.
Good.
Disposable vapes solved one legitimate problem: they gave smokers an extremely easy introduction to vaping. No coils, filling, menus or knowledge required. Open the packet, inhale and discover that escaping combustible tobacco does not necessarily require an engineering qualification.
Then the industry took that convenience and drove it straight through the wall.
We got enormous puff-count claims, permanently enclosed batteries, vast reservoirs of high-strength e-liquid and enough coloured plastic to frighten a landfill. A rechargeable disposable is still disposable when the juice finishes and the battery goes into the bin with it. Adding a USB port does not turn waste into sustainability. It merely ensures the battery is thoroughly used before being discarded.
The bill’s sponsor says more than 12 million disposables are sold every month and almost six are thrown away every second. She also points to fires at waste and recycling facilities. That last figure needs sensible handling: not every waste-site fire was necessarily caused by a vape. Lithium batteries throughout the waste stream create this problem.
But that is precisely the point. A disposable vape places a battery inside a product designed for rapid replacement, then relies on millions of consumers to find the correct hazardous-waste route instead of dropping it into an ordinary bin.
Anybody who has met the general public knows how that experiment ends.
The California law provides fines, seizure powers and escalating consequences for retailers. A first civil violation can cost $500, followed by $1,000 and then $2,000. Repeated seizures can lead to licence suspension and eventually revocation.
That enforcement matters. A ban printed in an official document but ignored behind the counter merely creates a thriving market for the least responsible sellers.
California also gave retailers until January 2028. That is generous enough to sell a mountain of stock and raise several new generations of brightly coloured plastic corpses. If the environmental problem is urgent, a sixteen-month retail runway feels rather leisurely.
Still, the central idea is correct.
This is the sort of regulation vaping should be able to defend: target the wasteful product design without destroying the lower-risk alternative itself.
Require reusable batteries or genuinely reusable devices. Preserve refillable systems. Make manufacturers responsible for the rubbish they create. Enforce age restrictions properly. Stop pretending that a lithium cell is acceptable packaging for twelve millilitres of mango ice.
There must also be a realistic path for adult smokers.
A person switching from cigarettes should be able to buy a simple refillable pod, receive competent advice, obtain a suitable nicotine strength and replace only the consumable part. If legitimate reusable products become difficult or expensive while black-market disposables remain available from every dodgy counter, the policy will have achieved a magnificent bureaucratic own goal.
The industry should not wait for every government to force the issue. Manufacturers know how to make refillable pods, replaceable coils, external-battery mods and durable hardware. They have spent years proving it.
Yet somebody discovered that repeatedly selling the entire device produces more revenue than selling juice and a replacement pod.
What an astonishing coincidence.
Vaping remains a valuable harm-reduction option for adult smokers. That does not oblige us to kneel before every product carrying a coil. A stupid vape design remains stupid even when it contains nicotine instead of tobacco.
So yes, California: ban the battery built for the bin.
Then enforce the law, keep sensible reusable systems available and resist the inevitable urge to treat every refillable device as tomorrow’s next problem.
Would you support the same targeted ban where you live, or do you think better collection and recycling could rescue the disposable model?
Why the hell are we manufacturing lithium batteries specifically to throw them away?
Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 762 on 28 September. From 1 January 2027, affected single-use vapes may no longer be imported into or manufactured for sale in California. Retail sale and distribution stop from 1 January 2028.
Before the usual panic wagon overturns, this is not a ban on vaping.
The actual bill text targets tobacco or nicotine vaping devices that are not designed for reuse and are either not refillable or not rechargeable. Refillable kits, replaceable pods, tanks, RDAs and ordinary reusable mods remain outside the ban. Cannabis products are also excluded.
In other words, California has not outlawed the screwdriver. It has outlawed the screwdriver with the handle welded to one screw and instructions to throw the whole bloody thing away afterwards.
Good.
Disposable vapes solved one legitimate problem: they gave smokers an extremely easy introduction to vaping. No coils, filling, menus or knowledge required. Open the packet, inhale and discover that escaping combustible tobacco does not necessarily require an engineering qualification.
Then the industry took that convenience and drove it straight through the wall.
We got enormous puff-count claims, permanently enclosed batteries, vast reservoirs of high-strength e-liquid and enough coloured plastic to frighten a landfill. A rechargeable disposable is still disposable when the juice finishes and the battery goes into the bin with it. Adding a USB port does not turn waste into sustainability. It merely ensures the battery is thoroughly used before being discarded.
The bill’s sponsor says more than 12 million disposables are sold every month and almost six are thrown away every second. She also points to fires at waste and recycling facilities. That last figure needs sensible handling: not every waste-site fire was necessarily caused by a vape. Lithium batteries throughout the waste stream create this problem.
But that is precisely the point. A disposable vape places a battery inside a product designed for rapid replacement, then relies on millions of consumers to find the correct hazardous-waste route instead of dropping it into an ordinary bin.
Anybody who has met the general public knows how that experiment ends.
The California law provides fines, seizure powers and escalating consequences for retailers. A first civil violation can cost $500, followed by $1,000 and then $2,000. Repeated seizures can lead to licence suspension and eventually revocation.
That enforcement matters. A ban printed in an official document but ignored behind the counter merely creates a thriving market for the least responsible sellers.
California also gave retailers until January 2028. That is generous enough to sell a mountain of stock and raise several new generations of brightly coloured plastic corpses. If the environmental problem is urgent, a sixteen-month retail runway feels rather leisurely.
Still, the central idea is correct.
This is the sort of regulation vaping should be able to defend: target the wasteful product design without destroying the lower-risk alternative itself.
Require reusable batteries or genuinely reusable devices. Preserve refillable systems. Make manufacturers responsible for the rubbish they create. Enforce age restrictions properly. Stop pretending that a lithium cell is acceptable packaging for twelve millilitres of mango ice.
There must also be a realistic path for adult smokers.
A person switching from cigarettes should be able to buy a simple refillable pod, receive competent advice, obtain a suitable nicotine strength and replace only the consumable part. If legitimate reusable products become difficult or expensive while black-market disposables remain available from every dodgy counter, the policy will have achieved a magnificent bureaucratic own goal.
The industry should not wait for every government to force the issue. Manufacturers know how to make refillable pods, replaceable coils, external-battery mods and durable hardware. They have spent years proving it.
Yet somebody discovered that repeatedly selling the entire device produces more revenue than selling juice and a replacement pod.
What an astonishing coincidence.
Vaping remains a valuable harm-reduction option for adult smokers. That does not oblige us to kneel before every product carrying a coil. A stupid vape design remains stupid even when it contains nicotine instead of tobacco.
So yes, California: ban the battery built for the bin.
Then enforce the law, keep sensible reusable systems available and resist the inevitable urge to treat every refillable device as tomorrow’s next problem.
Would you support the same targeted ban where you live, or do you think better collection and recycling could rescue the disposable model?
