Mei Jennifer

[PaulaHuang]

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https://www.ft.com/content/6d5ed980-8b91-4372-9e7e-14eda5419325

It was the sickly sweet scent lingering outside the school toilets that first alerted headteacher Dan Cleary to an emerging trend when pupils returned after the summer holiday last year. Since then, rarely does a fortnight go by when he does not have to discipline a student for stashing a “vape”, or electronic cigarette, in their backpack or blazer pocket.

Over the past decade, sales of e-cigarettes have grown as vaping has cemented its status as a less harmful way to consume nicotine than traditional cigarettes. But in recent years, a new generation of brightly coloured single-use devices with flavours like “cotton candy” and “green gummy bear” have become incredibly popular among young people, including those not old enough to legally buy them.

Enticed by Chinese-owned disposable vape brands such as Geek Bar, Elf Bar and Lost Mary, 18 per cent of 15-year-olds in England and Wales were using e-cigarettes in February last year — an all-time high, according to the NHS. Overall, the number of 11- to 17-year-olds who were vaping in Britain more than doubled last year from 3.3 per cent in 2021 to 7 per cent.

The latest vaping craze is hardening fears that the devices could get underage users hooked on nicotine. But it has also created a whole new problem: tonnes of electronic waste.

Unlike Juul, the previous market leader which was blamed for sparking a “vaping epidemic” among US teenagers, these e-cigarettes cannot be reused or recharged. The devices are often discarded like cigarette butts outside the school gates, says Cleary, principal at Robert Smyth Academy in Leicestershire.

The materials in single-use vapes could have a valuable second life if recycled properly. Each device contains about 0.15g of lithium in its battery, a metal classified as a “critical” raw material by the US and EU. The International Energy Agency has warned it could be in short supply within two years as manufacturers race to scale up electric car production.

[Reklama]

[jeffshao]

many people choosing to make the switch from smoking traditional cigarettes to using vape.[/url]

[Reklama]