Help Keep Vaping as Environmentally Friendly as Possible
By: Erica Freedman
It’s already been proven that vapes are better for the environment than cigarettes. Between the second-hand smoke polluting our air to the countless cigarette butts littering our streets, a puff of cotton candy vapor has been a welcomed change. But, much like computers, vaporizers are made up of parts that can be detrimental to the environment when disposed of improperly. Instead of simply throwing an old vape into the trash, there are now a variety of options to recycle the different pieces and ensure you're keeping your vape habit as clean as possible.
Start By Selling
If any part of your vape is still functional, your best bet is to resell. There is a slew of second-hand vape shops on the internet that will offer you cash for your old devices. Alternatively, Facebook and Reddit communities also connect buyers and sellers to make the process as easy as possible. Why dispose of something when you can make a bit of extra money?
Recycle Vape Batteries
If your vape pieces are broken, there is a slightly different protocol to recycling each individual vape piece. Batteries are one of the most important considerations when disposing of a broken vape, as these items contain lithium. Because lithium does not naturally occur in the environment, large quantities can cause a slew of environmental issues. According to The Guardian, lithium can have “negative consequences including mining, global warming, environmental pollution, and human health impacts.”
Instead of tossing batteries in the trash, find a local organization that specializes in battery disposal and recycling. Many of these organization will even offer to pick up the batteries from you.
Recycling E-Liquid Bottles
Although most e-juice liquid bottles are not recyclable in the traditional sense, there are some out-of-the-box options that can help you to limit your waste. If you purchase a flavor that you don’t like, definitely check to see if the company you buy from has a trade-in program. Some offer you the option to find your flavor instead of wasting your money on a bunch of pointless purchases.
If for some reason you’re stuck with your buy, or you have finished your e-liquid and are sitting with an empty bottle, a great option is to repurpose the bottle for other things. A couple of option include:
Using the bottles to make your own flavors: Home brewing is a cool way to develop your own flavor profile. Use these old bottles to experiment.
Replacing broken bottles: If a new purchase cracks, keep a small collection of old bottles to quickly switch it out.
Make art: The labels on these bottles can be really original and pretty. Collage and combine your bottles to create something new.
Recycling Vape Coils
The good news about coils is that, unlike batteries and bottles, this is a material that is easy to recycle. Scrap yards are always in search of metal materials and copper or aluminum coils fit the bill. Look up local listings for scrap metal sites that collect varied materials. Your coils will go to great use building something else.
Although recycling vape materials may not be the most convenient, it is definitely worth it. Vaporizers are a great way to improve the environment, but not if we’re filling our landfills with lithium. Take the extra time to get creative and make sure your vape parts are sorted to the right facilities.
Skills You Will Learn While Vaping - Electronics, Chemistry, Physics & Common Sense
In the recent years, vaping has developed into a ‘plug-and-play’ sport. You get your MOD, your tank, and your vape juices and you’re good to go. Put a few drops in the tank, puff away, and rinse and repeat. Oh, and charge your batteries from time to time. And this is great. It means that vaping is accessible to a lot more people who might otherwise be too lazy to take it up if it was difficult. However, scratch just a bit under the surface and you will find that there are a lot of vaping skills that can be helpful in everyday life.
Advanced vapers (those using mech MODs, rebuilding their coils, and/or mixing their own vape juices) pick up quite a few things during their learning process. They will often dabble with things that have to do with electronics, chemistry, and physics in order to figure out how something works and how to make it work better.
Check out these skills that vaping teaches and decide for yourself whether going advanced is worth the hassle. We most certainly think it is.
Battery Safety Principles Will Let You Keep Your Teeth!
The first hat you don is dual in nature- you will be both an electrician and a chemist - you have to be since we’re talking about batteries right now. We use them every day - in our electric trimmers, power tools, remote controls, and smartphones. They are generally safe, even when vaping, especially if you use them with regulated devices.
However, problems arise if you become too nonchalant about batteries when building coils and using them on mechanical, unregulated MODs. To do this safely, you have to learn about batteries and what makes them tick. You have to know why they are named the way they are (18350, 18650, 26650), what amperage is, and what IMR and ICR mean.
Battery designations such as 18350 and 18650 are not just random numbers someone decided to use. They have their meaning. The first two digits stand for battery diameter, the second to for battery length, and the last digit denotes shape. Zero, as you could imagine, stands for ‘round’.
This gives you an idea about which battery will fit in what device right from the get-go. Although most devices use 18650 batteries these days, there are still outliers and you want to know about that so you don’t end up buying something you can’t use with your device.
Next thing you will familiarize yourself with is amperage. Amperage is a unit used to measure current and it’s important because you always need to know how much current can be safely drawn from a battery. Some batteries are rated 35 amps but don’t go thinking that you can continuously draw that from them. That’s a pulse rating - short, intermittent bursts of that kind of draw can be tolerated. To be on the safe side, make sure you never draw more than 20 amps from a battery (better yet, leave yourself a margin and cap that at 17 amps), especially if you’re taking puffs often or chain-vaping.
Why?
Because you don’t want to get your teeth knocked out by a venting battery, which will happen if you draw too much power and have no idea about the Ohm’s Law (we will get to that in a minute). Battery thermal runaway is a serious issue and can potentially turn your mechanical MOD into a deadly weapon.
IMR and ICR stand for Lithium Manganese and Lithium Cobalt Oxide, respectively. They tell you a bit more about battery’s internal chemistry. It’s generally accepted that IMR batteries are safer than ICR batteries. They support higher discharge rates and should be your number one pick for low resistance builds.
The Ohm’s Law - Essential For Safe Vaping
Basically, the Ohm’s Law defines the relationship between current (amps), voltage and the resistance - everything you deal with every time you pick up a MOD and take a deep, satisfying puff. This is how the relevant equations look like:
So let’s break it all down:
I = CURRENT - the rate of the flow of electrons and measured in amps.
V = VOLTAGE DIFFERENCE - difference in electrical potential.
R = RESISTANCE - how much does a material restrict the flow of electrons.
Another important number not pictured above is W and it stands for Power, measured in Watts.
W = POWER - a process in which electrical current releases heat.
So why is this all important?
Knowing Ohm’s Law important because it gives you a working knowledge of how your MOD operates. This is especially important when you’re using mechanical MODS which have no safeties and no way to regulate how much power is drawn from a battery.
Remember thermal runaway, that thing that can cause your mechanical MOD to blow like a bomb? By far the most common way to cause it is to draw too much power from your battery. Higher resistance equals lower wattage, cooler vapor, and lower amperage, which means a safer vape. Lower resistance means higher wattage and, consequently, higher amperage.
Most batteries are capped at 20 amps for a continuous draw. This means that if you’re drawing more power, there’s potential you’re going to damage the battery and cause thermal runaway - after which it’s you who is going to have to run away! Knowing how Ohm’s Law works and what it means for vaping will keep you from building coils with too low resistance and will keep you out of a hospital.
For more (easy to understand) information about Ohm’s Law, check out this great video by New Amsterdam Vape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3h0ta-L_zc&t=48s
Vaping Wires - Materials, Gauge, Surface Area, and Ramp Up Time
Resistance is also an important metric in the above calculation and in the whole process of vaping. It determines how much power you’re going to need to heat up the coil and to enable it to evaporate your vape juice. This all hinges on what type of resistance wire you’re using, what’s the gauge (diameter), and how big is the surface area (how many wraps you’re doing on every single coil).
Let’s talk about the gauge first. For example, 32 gauge Kanthal wire (0.2 mm or 0.008 in) has a higher resistance than a 24 gauge Kanthal wire (0.51 mm or 0.02 in). To run it, you’re going to need more power and more amperage but the result is going to be warmer, more abundant vapor and increased flavor. Keep in mind not to overdo it. Generally, smaller gauge wires are easier to work so that’s one reason why people use them. Bigger gauge wires are for sub-ohming because, as mentioned, they create a better overall vaping experience for some vapers.
Still, this will depend a lot on the type of wire you’re using. This is where you get to play a metallurgist and an engineer if you’re so inclined. There are currently five types of wires predominantly used to make coils and they are:
Stainless Steel - holds shape well and is easy to work with. Has a better ramp up time than Kanthal and can work with Variable Wattage and TC MODs.
Kanthal - easy to work with, pliable, but still holds shape well. It has an average ramp up time and is generally a good wire for beginners and single-coil builds.
Ni-Chrome - known as Ni80. It has lower resistance than Kanthal, which also means reduced ramp up time if we’re talking about the same gauge wire. Be careful - Ni-Chrome has a low melting point and doesn’t tolerate dry burning that well. It’s also a known allergen.
Titanium - not difficult to work with and must be used with TC MODs. Titanium has a faster ramp up time but can be a hazard - it can ignite at extremely high temperatures.
Nickel - also known as Ni200, it’s the first wire to be used with TC. Difficult to work with and doesn’t hold shape well - easily bends when wicking. Nickel can cause allergies as well.
Every one of these wires has its pros and its cons. The subtleties in flavor will change, depending on which one you’re using, and so will vapor production. They will also have a differing ramp up time, as mentioned already. Ramp up time is the time required to heat up your coil to the point where it starts evaporating vape juice. It’s dependent on many things, including wire type, wire gauge, coiling diameter, and overall surface area.
Surface area depends on how many wraps you’re doing for your coils. It can play a major part in flavor and vapor production. There are countless combinations - more wraps with a smaller diameter and higher gauge, fewer wraps with a smaller diameter and lower gauge, more wraps with a higher diameter and higher gauge, and so on. You name it and it’s probably been done - check out the ECF forum to find more info on the intricacies of coil-building.
When we’re talking about advanced vaping, nothing is easy! All of this can seem pretty overwhelming but you’ve probably had to deal with all of it if you ever built a single coil from scratch. If you haven’t, it’s important to remember that vaping is all about personal preference and experimentation. As you can see, you’ll dabble in a lot of fields, from metallurgy and engineering and all the way to physics and chemistry. All those skills will make for some impressive talking points. After all, isn’t variety truly the spice of life?
But we’re not over yet! There’s one big vaping area we haven’t even touched on and it’s extremely popular with advanced vapers. Care to guess what it is?
Why DIY? The Science of Making Your Own Vape Juice
Vape juice DIY used to be reserved for hard-core vapers but it’s getting increasingly popular. One reason for that is the increasing over-regulation, as we’ve seen in the case of TPD in Europe. The other reason is that a lot of vapers consider vaping to be a hobby - they actually enjoy tinkering with their setups and vape juices so it makes sense to devote a little time to vape juice mixing. When you think about it, DIYing is the process by which most vape juice manufacturers come up with new flavors. Experimentation is the key and a lot of premium vape juices had their start on a dusty table in a garage of an enthusiastic vaper.
Other benefits of mixing your own vape juice include:
Sidestepping the regulations - regulations are limiting bottle sizes, nicotine levels, and more. By making your own vape juice you can make as much as you want at whatever nicotine level you desire.
Cost-effectiveness - 30 ml of premium vape juice can cost up to $30. On the other hand, you can mix up to a liter and half yourself for just over $120. This includes buying PG, VG, flavorings, nicotine, and everything else you’re going to need to start.
Control over ingredients - you always know exactly what you’re putting into your vape juice. Most manufacturers don’t disclose their ingredients - there was even some controversy about vape juices containing untested ingredients. By DIYing, you know exactly what you’re vaping.
So, what exactly do you learn when mixing your own juice? You learn exactly what goes into it - vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, various flavorings, and, optionally, nicotine. You learn that playing around with percentages can yield great results but that it can also often produce horrible vape juice. For example, if you’re off by just 0.1 % with certain flavorings can make your juice completely unfit for vaping!
You also learn that there are two ways of going about vape juice mixing:
By weight - measuring the weight down to a hundredth of a gram
By volume - measuring the space a liquid occupies
Luckily for you, you don’t have to be a math wiz to mix your own vape juices. Sure, you can do it the hard way but there are dozens of great vape juice mixing calculators available online, such as this one from E-Liquid Recipes. You simply enter your ingredients and the quantity you’re going for and you will get two calculations - one for mixing by weight and another one for mixing by volume.
This is important because all vape juices are mixed by percentages. Your base liquid will be 100% or one whole. The amount of flavoring that goes into each mix differs - anywhere from 0.5% for complex juices with more flavors, to 10% for simpler, one-note juices. If you’re adding nicotine, you will be adding it diluted in either PG or VG (there are different concentrations, anywhere from 24mg to 100mg). Word of caution - never use pure nicotine when mixing. It’s poison and needs to be handled carefully.
So how do you do it? With volume mixing it’s a bit easier. If you’re making 30 ml of vape juice you just need to figure out how much 3 % (or 1 %, 2%, or 5%, depending on flavoring) of 30 ml is in milliliters. Then you use a syringe or a pipette to add that amount to the bottle. Once all the flavorings (and nicotine) are in, you top the bottle off with PG and VG in different concentrations, depending on the VG/PG mix you’re going for.
Mixing by weight is a bit more difficult but it’s a lot cleaner. An assumption is that 1 ml equals 1 gram, right? Well, that’s only true for water. PG, VG, flavorings, and nicotine have different consistencies so that assumption would be wrong. For example, 1 ml of PG is 1.038 grams, 1 ml of VG is a whopping 1.26 grams, and the weights of 1 ml of flavoring and nicotine will depend on the solvent they are in (PG or VG), as well as the type of flavoring.
And that’s it! Mixing your own vape juice is a handy vaping skill and, with all the tools and ingredients available online, it’s not nearly as much hassle as you might have previously thought. If you need ideas on what to make, visit eLR or the DIY e juice subreddit - new recipes are added daily.
So why not give it a try?
The Most Important Vaping Skill - Common Sense
That’s right. You get to learn a lot about common sense when you’re a vaper. For one, you learn that pushing your choices on everybody you meet is a waste of time. People will either recognize the benefits or they won’t. On the other hand, you also learn to deal with things - like being asked to leave a restaurant or a bar, getting looks from strangers, and explaining for the umpteenth time that no, vaping is definitely not worse than smoking.
You will learn that vaping flavorings is a big no-no (since you will have tried after getting your first batch and DIYing), that metal coins in your pocket don’t mix well with unprotected batteries, and that cloud-chasing is a sport best enjoyed in the comfort of your own home.
What did you learn since you started vaping? Share it with us in the comments section below and don’t worry if you had to learn something from the ‘common sense’ category the hard way. You were not the first and definitely won’t be the last!
