[HN Gopher] Picking up free lithium cells off the street and mak...
___________________________________________________________________
Picking up free lithium cells off the street and making them safe
for use
Author : iamflimflam1
Score : 172 points
Date : 2022-07-17 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atomic14.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atomic14.com)
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I wonder if someone did the math how the plastic straw "problem"
| compares to vape litter.
| lnsru wrote:
| So so, electronic waste landing everywhere while illusion of
| closed loop electronic recycling is being sold as a solution. My
| proposition: deposit of 25EUR for small electrical devices and
| 50EUR and more for bigger ones so that these do not land in
| landfills.
| kennywinker wrote:
| This kind of solution is absolutely what's required. Two
| addendums:
|
| First, make the deposit a function of battery size not item
| size or cost (small battery $5 deposit, medium battery $10,
| large $50). This way the environmental cost of a specific
| battery is linked to the consumer's cost in a way that it isn't
| really now when the variation in battery cost is swallowed up
| in the cost of the item itself.
|
| Second, peg this deposit to inflation. 20 years ago the 5c
| deposit on a beer can meant a lot more than it does today. I'm
| old enough to remember my fairly well off grandparents saving
| up their cans and returning them. Today, nobody I know bothers.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> peg this deposit to inflation. 20 years ago the 5c deposit
| on a beer can meant a lot more than it does today_
|
| Adjusted for inflation, 5C/ in 2002 would just be 8C/.
| softfalcon wrote:
| You might have to forgive them, if they're talking about
| their folks with the ear marked "20 years" they're likely
| old like me and think that means 1970. Us old folks tend to
| think "20 years ago" means 20 years before 1990's. It's a
| common mental flub.
|
| That would make the inflation value closer to $0.38 in
| today's money. It's not a lot, but when you're getting
| almost 8x the amount for each can, it adds up.
| jefftk wrote:
| Bottle deposits aren't that old: MA is 1982, CA is 1987,
| etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legi
| slation_...
|
| 5C/ in 1982 would be 15C/ now, so it's more, but not that
| much more?
| drewzero1 wrote:
| It _is_ 3X, and when it 's per can that does add up to a
| significant amount. That would add $1.20 to a 12-pack
| case, which usually cost just $6 here (admittedly a state
| that doesn't do deposits).
| ascar wrote:
| Glass bottles have 8 Cent deposit in Germany and plastic
| bottles/tin cans have 25 Cent. I rarely ever not bring a
| plastic bottle or can back, but I do let glass bottles
| stand around near garbage cans for the bottle collectors.
|
| I see the same behavior among many others. It's just
| anecdotal, but that 3x seems to make a huge difference.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I was definitely remembering events that happened in the
| mid-90s as 20 years ago. So, according to the CPI,
| 1995->2002 (27 years ago, good god) $0.05 -> $0.09
|
| That $0.04 doesn't sound like much, but say you were
| collecting enough cans to make $50/day in 1995 money (560
| cans) - now you're making only $28 a day. That's the
| difference between having a home and being homeless.
|
| It's also the difference between "worth saving up and
| taking a trip to the return center" and "meh, chuck em".
| Though at least the latter helps people trying to collect
| more than 500 cans a day.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Third, make manufacturers pay for deposit on devices with
| non-replaceable batteries.
|
| As in tax them at the time of purchase, on batteries that
| render a device unusable.
| Nition wrote:
| I have to say, it seems ridiculous that we're at the point
| where people are dying in Europe this week from a heatwave
| exacerbated by climate change, and we're not even
| implementing basic measures like this yet.
| gruez wrote:
| How much contribution does "electronics with non-
| replaceable batteries" add to climate change? 10%? 1%?
| 0.1%? Bringing this up when talking about climate change
| is like bringing up plastic straws bans in first world
| countries when talking about microplastic pollution (ie.
| ignoring the fact that half of microplastics in the ocean
| comes from fishing gear).
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Gerry McGovern's "World Wide Waste" (podcast, book and
| site) is a great place to start learning about the real
| impact of our electronic world on our environment.
| ornornor wrote:
| You've got to start somewhere though. And anywhere is
| marginally better than nowhere. As opposed to throwing
| your arms up in the air saying "it's pointless we should
| be doing something else instead so let's do nothing at
| all". That's exactly what the industry is aiming for,
| learned helplessness.
| tsol wrote:
| My argument against minimally effective action is that it
| can make people feel like they did something significant,
| and therefore discourage further change. Those plastic
| straws effective function in our society isn't that it
| removes plastic waste, it just absolves us of
| responsibility by letting us say we tried
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > * You've got to start somewhere though. And anywhere is
| marginally better than nowhere.*
|
| These are the classical mistakes people make when
| optimizing software.
|
| This way you end up spending a lot of effort to make your
| code 0.0012% faster.
|
| I have no doubt this mistake will keep being made
| throughout all of human history.
| ta988 wrote:
| Except that software is usually few devs, lots of users.
| Here we are all contributors to the climate. So even if
| we all pick something different from our neighbor,
| changes can be made. Typical broken reasoning arising
| from comparing the way world works to software
| development.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You still need to quantify what impact you have.
| Otherwise you can't tell grains of sand from mountains.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > That's exactly what the industry is aiming for, learned
| helplessness.
|
| I am wholely in agreement with you but there are some
| pretty big percentage wise holes that we need to plug.
|
| Namely:
|
| 1. Getting ride of coal and Natural Gas power generation
| (which means replacing with renewables +storage, or
| fission, none of which are easily deployable)
|
| 2. Stopping methane leaks in Oil&Gas pipelines and
| active/decomissioned wells.
| gruez wrote:
| Okay, but what makes you think that interventions like
| "forcing manufacturers to make electronics have
| replaceable batteries" are easier to implement than other
| interventions like "invest in renewable energy projects"?
| Taking the approach of jumping at every possible
| intervention that is vaguely relevant (eg. today it's
| batteries in electronics because of this thread, tomorrow
| it's banning single use plastics because of some thread
| about recycling being a lie) seems worse because there
| won't ever be enough political will/support to get any
| single project implemented.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| As the aphorism goes "a journey of a thousand miles
| begins with a single step".
|
| Seems like you'll only do things that make a significant
| contribution. Yes, with drinking straws it was a symbolic
| action, and yes you risk people thinking "ok, done it".
| But the current alternative is no action at all. We need
| to start, take the first small steps before chastising
| ourselves for not having gone any miles yet.
| gruez wrote:
| >But the current alternative is no action at all.
|
| Why is there a dichotomy of "fund low impact project
| that's relevant to this thread" and "do nothing at all"?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _But the current alternative is no action at all_
|
| Most of the world is spending huge effort to decarbonize.
| May well not be enough, but it's _very_ different from
| nothing.
|
| I strongly recommend that, wherever you get your news
| from, try looking somewhere else!!
| jahewson wrote:
| Net zero means net zero. Batteries are going to be a huge
| part of our future and we need sustainable approaches to
| managing them right now and even more later.
| [deleted]
| Nition wrote:
| What I mean is, certainly we need to make some huge
| changes, yet we're not even at the point of taking on
| these relatively straightforward ones.
| gruez wrote:
| This problem does not seem straightforward. Making have
| replaceable batteries _and_ preserving their existing
| functionality (eg. thinness, water resistance) doesn 't
| seem easy, nor does convincing the population to accept
| worse phones when most people are on a 2 year upgrade
| cycle.
| Nition wrote:
| If convincing people to not replace their phone every two
| years, or accept one that's a little thicker is too
| difficult, then I suspect we're in big trouble.
| ascar wrote:
| That has a) nothing to do with the topic at hand (improving
| recycling rates) anr b) isn't even effective. A deposit
| isn't a tax. You need to give the consumer money for
| actually bringing the product to a recycling spot, so a tax
| doesn't help. Psychological it's a better motivator if that
| money was originally paid by the consumer as in you're
| losing money you paid, if you don't bring it back, and it's
| also much easier to implement.
|
| If you want to tax non-replaceable batteries that will just
| be factored into the price and the thing is that easily
| replaceable batteries are in conflict with other design
| goals consumers are willing to pay for (like water
| proofness).
|
| I understand the frustration with non-replaceable batteries
| creating some kind of planned obsolescence, but there is no
| easy solution without sacrificing other things.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Maybe we should tax externalities of non-renewables more
| before we start taxing renewables?
| bombcar wrote:
| It also provides an effective income for those disadvantaged
| enough; if the five cent deposit on cans had increased with
| inflation there'd still be an incentive to do it.
|
| $1-5 for vape devices would be similar.
| ratsmack wrote:
| I made this point today, but it was summarily dismissed as "not
| a problem".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32120246&p=2#32121248
| UkrainianJew wrote:
| Sadly, this is not very practical. A lithium cell in itself is
| a chemical time bomb: if it gets mechanically damaged or short-
| circuited, it has enough oomph to burn your device, skin or
| house. For factory-produced battery packs this effect is
| mitigated by having protective circuits that monitor charge
| level, temperature and a bunch of other parameters, cutting off
| the power if the cell is deemed too dangerous. But once you
| take a random lithium cell off the street and try to revitalize
| it, you are opening a can of worms: depending on how it was
| used, it might be full of dendrites [0], ready to cause a fiery
| short-circuit a few charges after. It might have structural
| damage due to gas buildup, or someone literally stepping on it.
| It could have been under direct sunlight for longer than it
| should, and so on.
|
| It's fine to tinker around with it for your own experiments,
| but you don't want to ship it to anybody who's not going to be
| using it in a fireproof lab wearing eye protection.
|
| A better idea would be to find a way to properly recycle the
| raw materials (i.e. extract the lithium from a dead cell), but
| that could be several orders of magnitude more challenging.
|
| [0] https://www.batterypoweronline.com/news/a-look-inside-
| your-b...
| wffurr wrote:
| The deposit can fund the materials recycling and encourage a
| take back program.
| onion2k wrote:
| This would just mean wealthy people get to trash the
| environment with impunity.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| They already get to though, so...
| sschueller wrote:
| I am not saying this is OK nor acceptable however with a
| deposit people can pull batteries out of the trash and redeem
| them like cans and bottles. Just that a battery is worth a
| lot more.
| gruez wrote:
| >My proposition: deposit of 25EUR for small electrical devices
| and 50EUR and more for bigger ones so that these do not land in
| landfills.
|
| This is already a thing in EU, and parts of US and Canada.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Waste_Recycling_Fee
| konschubert wrote:
| Well, it's not a deposit. It's a tax that manufacturers pay,
| which finances some make-pretend recycling options. But
| consumes don't use the recycling options and the electronics
| still end up on landfills.
| gruez wrote:
| I don't get it. Everything you said applicable to the
| parent's suggestion as well. What exactly are is your point
| here?
| notatoad wrote:
| A deposit means you get it back when you return the
| material to a recycling facility. The Recycling levy in
| Canada is just charged on the sale, and that's the end of
| it. If you choose to throw the battery in the ocean
| instead of the appropriate recycle bin, you get just as
| much money back.
| konschubert wrote:
| I thought the parents suggestion was that the _consumer_
| pays 25 Euro and receive them back when recycling the
| electronic device. Like... a deposit on bottles.
|
| I'm afraid this would have the opposite effect though.
| Instead of donating old phones or CD players, people
| would have them trashed to get their deposit back.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think as soon as you add a monetary value, people think
| something like "I don't need the $25, I'll just put it in
| the trash."
|
| People are complaining about the current state of
| recycling, but I save up all my lithium batteries and pay
| to have them recycled every few years. You can't throw
| that shit away.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| In some European countries this type of deposit is normal
| for plastic and glass bottles and other drinks
| containers, though the deposit is usually much lower (25
| to 50 cents).
|
| The impact is significant, even if it's such a low amount
| of money. A EUR25 deposit would definitely keep people
| from throwing out these things en masse. There will
| always be people who will act selfishly and against their
| self interest, but you've got to be pretty damn rich to
| throw out EUR25 like it's nothing.
| dancek wrote:
| I wouldn't call it make-pretend when you can drop
| electronics in any supermarket and they'll take care of
| recycling. I don't have statistics but anecdotally people
| here in Finland seem to recycle electronics as intended.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| That's still more work than dropping them in the trash
| bin at home, or on the street. And at least here in the
| US where I live, while many areas have residential
| recycling pick-up, you can't put electronics in with
| that.
| rruark wrote:
| I built a USB power back using these cells a couple months ago
| after finding out that disposable vapes have rechargeable
| batteries. A friend had already taken the cells out of several of
| his own vapes; I don't know how I'd feel about taking apart ones
| that I found on the street.
|
| http://robruark.com/projects/power_bank/power_bank.html
| odiroot wrote:
| I see a lot of these disposable e-cigarettes here in England.
| Usually discarded around big parks in the centre. I did consider
| picking them up to reuse before.
| derekdahmer wrote:
| Don't know much about batteries - what makes these 500mAh battery
| packs useful/valuable for home projects?
|
| 2800mAh NiMH AA batteries are like $1.50 each. Will they not do
| the job?
| gumby wrote:
| > So far, I've only managed to score a couple, but I know of
| people who can't seem to stop finding them. I guess it's the same
| people who always seem to find pennies when they are walking
| around.
|
| I don't find pennies, but the first lock picks I made I made from
| street cleaner bristles someone gave me. I'd never seen one
| before up close, but since that day I've been unable to _not_
| find them and pick them up, typically one or two a week. Except
| that day I was working really late and when I looked at the empty
| parking lot as the sun rose and the ground flashed at me :-)
|
| The same thing happened with four leaf clovers: a friend claimed
| they are reasonably common and we went out to a lawn and looked.
| Within a couple of days I'd trained my brain to detect them as I
| walk around.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| > I'd never seen one before up close, but since that day I've
| been unable to not find them and pick them up, typically one or
| two a week.
|
| Same. At a previous HOPE, I'd mentioned to someone in the
| lockpicking village that I had never been able to find them,
| despite living in a city with weekly street sweeping. We walked
| outside and promptly found 10 or so. As you say, after you know
| what they look like, and where they usually are, you can't help
| but see them!
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Huh, street sweeper bristles are metal?
| jakzurr wrote:
| That is correct. Decades ago, my cousin was into recreational
| lock-picking, and it turns out the bristles are perfect for
| machining into such tools.
|
| EDIT - whoops, I stand corrected, metal or plastic.
| ta988 wrote:
| They are no that great because they rust. Windshield wiper
| blades are a much better metal. And you can find tons of
| them just going to an auto store parking lot after a rain.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Recommended by the MIT guide to lock picking -
| https://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf page
| 44
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Quite often, yes! I sometimes collect them for making
| lockpicks and other small tools (a common practice!)
| bombcar wrote:
| The ones I've seen are either metal (black ones) or very hard
| plastic (blue).
| gruez wrote:
| >very hard plastic (blue).
|
| mmm... microplastics
| swimfar wrote:
| I don't recall ever seeing something like this so I wanted to
| know what they look like. Here's a short video that shows a guy
| walking around looking for them. He also talks briefly about
| some uses he has for them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DOwMr_T4_A
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Wait, those thin metal with loops on one end? Those are street
| cleaner bristles?
| stavros wrote:
| I wanted to buy some VTC6 cells (for my RC planes), but there's a
| big counterfeit problem here, so I did what any one of us would
| do: I wrote a capacity testing program to graph the battery
| capacity. It's fairly easy to use, if you want to test your own
| cells, all you need (TM) is an electronic load and a drone FC
| (they come with voltage/current sensors and cost $15, plus I had
| a few lying around).
|
| Here are some pretty graphs of fake and real VTC6es:
|
| https://notes.stavros.io/maker-things/battery-discharge-curv...
|
| The software is called Assault and Battery:
|
| https://gitlab.com/stavros/assault-and-battery/
| gumby wrote:
| I suppose the opposite is true too: you could make a little
| circuit in volume that could turn junk (or any) batteries into
| firestarters. Glad nobody seems to have made these IFDs.
| aoki wrote:
| Not knowing anything about vape internals and with him
| referring to them as "lithium" instead of LiPo or LiIon, I
| thought on first reading that he was recommending recharging
| primary lithium batteries. Which would already be a kind of
| stochastic IFD!
| squarefoot wrote:
| This is a good way to limit somehow the environmental damage
| created by those disgraceful single use vape devices; I wonder
| how on earth they're allowed to be produced and sold! Other users
| warned about recovered batteries: true, give them a good visual
| inspection first, always check they're not damaged and measure
| above a certain safe level (usually 3.0V for Li-Ion) before
| attempting their recharge. Also keep in mind that those small
| TP4056 boards were set up for recharging bigger cells and output
| a higher current. With 500mA charging a 550mA cell we're close to
| C, which is perfectly doable, however it's a stress I wouldn't
| subject a unknown used cell to. To stay on the safe side, I'd
| limit the output current to 250mA or less, which is doable by
| swapping the resistor going from pin 2 of the chip to ground with
| a 5KOhm or more one.
| emson wrote:
| Great article, it does make you think what more we could be doing
| to track and recycle waste. There must be a data analytics play
| here?
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| I see dozens of these scattered about every time I go walking in
| my area. Need to order a bunch of those protection/charging
| boards and start harvesting the free batteries.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Wait are those things disposable? Vape sticks or whatever they're
| called? WTF!
|
| I can't believe this is tolerated, that is a massive amount of
| environmental damage for an incredibly stupid distraction that
| lasts for a day or so.
|
| Damn!
| explodingwaffle wrote:
| They should be illegal- the waste of RECHARGEABLE lithium cells
| in DISPOSABLE vapes is insane. At least in the UK, anywhere there
| are teenagers these things follow. I'll admit as an electronics
| hobbyist these can be a good source of free batteries though
| (hell, it'd probably be cheaper and certainly quicker for me to
| walk into a vape shop and shuck these for the batteries than it
| is to buy them online).
|
| Real evil villain stuff tbh- wasting rare metals, getting kids
| addicted to nicotine, probably shipped by the boatload from
| China...
| tsol wrote:
| These types of situations make me think some externalities
| should be priced in, perhaps through taxes. It's ridiculous
| that these devices make litter of rare metals that also have a
| risk of fires. If we're gonna allow it, it ought to include the
| cost of inevitably cleaning them up off the streets
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "These types of situations make me think some externalities
| should be priced in, perhaps through taxes. "
|
| Why not all? Externalities are hard to determine but in
| general this should be a principle in a capitalist market
| economy.
| labster wrote:
| The free market already accounts for externalities by
| making other people pay for them.
| culi wrote:
| that's not how that works
| oarsinsync wrote:
| In theory or in practice? How should/does it work?
| legalcorrection wrote:
| That's literally true but that's inefficient. The
| question is whether it's more inefficient than whatever
| you try to do to solve it and the risk it does more harm
| than good.
| detritus wrote:
| These stupid things and fairly large Nox canisters (650g) are
| utterly befouling my locality here in London.
|
| I despair. I really do.
| [deleted]
| dqpb wrote:
| Maybe it's just the news I'm fed, but I have an unshakeable
| feeling that China is waging war with "the west", but they're
| doing it discretely, by making everyone a little sicker.
| sneak wrote:
| Why is it insane? What's the harm in someone disposing what
| they have paid for?
| eternityforest wrote:
| Lithium mining is horrible. Landfills are a problem. The more
| mining the more pollution. The more disposable lithium the
| more mining.
| Julien_r2 wrote:
| They didn't pay for the processing.. We ignore a lot of cost
| when selling a product, and particularly the cost of
| recycling, which start to be a huge issue taking in account
| the amount of waste produced..
|
| This gives us the feeling that electricity is almost free and
| green, while in the meantime we damage entire area through
| lithium mining (E.g
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/business/lithium-
| mining-r...)
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| What is going on with the "st" ligature on this site?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Have to agree - very distracting. After a while I kinda lost
| track of what the article was saying and just started
| "spotting" the ligatures.
| smegsicle wrote:
| automatic font ligatures and their consequences have been a
| disaster for the human race
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Sorry to be snarky, but this whole comment thread borders on
| satire for me.
|
| If I can think of a "disaster for the human race", it's
| probably people being paid obscene amounts of money in
| exchange for advancing the destruction of the environment.
| [deleted]
| Cerium wrote:
| There is a CSS rule: font-feature-settings: "liga", "dlig" [1].
| This rule enables both standard (liga) and discretionary
| ligatures (dlig). The discretionary set often includes a loop
| "st" ligature [2].
|
| [1] https://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/f/font-feature-
| set...
|
| [2] https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/open-type-
| syntax.html#dl...
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Interesting, I had not yet heard of or thought about that CSS
| property, but it makes sense that it exists.
|
| For example, one could enable them for headlines only, or
| only for smaller font sizes, only with a minimum DPR...
| robocat wrote:
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-
| featur... says "Whenever possible, Web authors should instead
| use the font-variant shorthand property or an associated
| longhand property such as font-variant-ligatures, font-
| variant-caps, font-variant-east-asian, font-variant-
| alternates, font-variant-numeric or font-variant-position.
| These lead to more effective, predictable, understandable
| results than font-feature-settings, which is a low-level
| feature designed to handle special cases where no other way
| exists to enable or access an OpenType font feature."
|
| Using https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-
| varian... you can disable font ligatures (yayyy!).
|
| Safari Mobile allows JavaScript shortcuts to run in any web
| page: I created a web shortcut in the Apple Shortcuts App to
| disable ligatures using JavaScript, and run it from the page
| share icon in Mobile Safari - unobvious functionality! I only
| learned that feature was available on the iPad today! I would
| prefer a user style sheet override. . .
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Hopefully fixed - didn't see anything on my machine so was
| wondering what people were talking about!
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Couldn't see it on FF Android either
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Funny, just looked at one of my previous blog posts and
| it's strangely appropriate!
| https://www.atomic14.com/2020/08/25/how-do-we-debug.html
| cabirum wrote:
| It sticks out like a sore thumb and is completely unnecessary
| for this typeface.
| diimdeep wrote:
| I still have a few Lithium polymer MacBook batteries after
| replacing them due to swell. I think it is possible to get
| individual cells from them and use protection circuits like this.
| The problem of course is that they swelled, there is videos how
| people puncture outside shell to release gas, but it is a very
| dangerous and scary thing to do.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Be extremely careful about damaged batteries, they are a major
| fire risk indoors. Strongly recommend outdoors disassembly away
| from structures. Metal ammo boxes are a good idea to store the
| batteries in as a lot of RC hobbyists know
| Wingman4l7 wrote:
| You can also purchase heavy zippered containers or Velcro-ed
| pouches made of fire-retardant fabric that are intended for use
| as safe charging containers for lithium polymer batteries.
| picture wrote:
| I personally wouldn't trust anything less than steel ammo
| boxes. I've exploded batteries before and they get
| _seriously_ hot. It will completely burn through anything
| without a lot of thermal mass. There are videos on youtube
| showing how cheaper pouches are completely useless
| jrockway wrote:
| What is a battery fire like in an ammo box? I imagine
| flames shooting up, catching the ceiling on fire, and the
| bottom getting so hot that it catches the shelf on fire.
|
| I made a lithium battery pack for amateur radio once. I was
| scared of it for a while and charged it in my fireplace. If
| it catches on fire, well, that's the place, right? (They
| were A123 cells though. Not as firey as other chemistries.)
| olivermarks wrote:
| A damaged battery's trapped energy is very explosive. A
| decent steel ammo box will contain the blast. It seems
| likely that a discarded battery found on the street might
| have been crushed or punctured by a vehicle wheel or
| similar https://youtu.be/HCGtRgBUHX8
| rsch wrote:
| I started reading it, saw the first photo and went oh my
| gaaaaaaaaad wear gloves.
|
| And not just for the goop inside the thing, people had this thing
| in their mouth.
|
| The next paragraph confirms the author came to this conclusion
| too.
| greatartiste wrote:
| These things are now everywhere , not just litter but an
| environmental horror story and a fire risk as well. Previously I
| had seen them & wondered what they were then this Big Clive video
| explained all ..
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N65DpT2nqEI&ab_channel=bigcl...
|
| I must admit the ones with 1500 mah batteries are very useful.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| My God, that video made me wince when he revealed the insides
| of all those devices. Perfectly good lithium and manufacturing,
| made to be used once and literally thrown away. Such a
| disgusting level of waste.
| tsol wrote:
| How is that cost effective? To me, it seems like something is
| wrong with our economy if it's cost effective to waste so
| many resources. I'm sure the cost to an individual to extract
| and refine those resources are low-- but the cost to society
| as a whole of littering those resources is great
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| you have a strong of faith in capitalism if you expect a
| market solution to these kind of ills, or if you think it's
| a few incremental reforms away from being back on-track as
| "correct" capitalism
| tiagod wrote:
| In many countries, tobacco is very highly taxed (over 10PS
| for a pack in the UK). Some recent legislation made
| reusable vaporiser products hard to purchase and sell,
| limiting tank sizes, nicotine contents, etc, which opened
| the market for these.
|
| Due to the highly taxed nature of nicotine products, the
| battery/circuitry cost is negligible if it helps getting
| around restrictions.
| neurostimulant wrote:
| Cigarettes are heavily taxed and very expensive, so these
| disposable e-cig is already profitable when sold at 50%
| cigarettes price.
| failTide wrote:
| I've even seen them ending up in the ocean and harbors. Teens
| will litter them on the shoreline and not realize (or care)
| that the high tide will take them.
| baobob wrote:
| It's been infuriating watching this in real time in the UK.
| Over the past 6 months, shops that sold liquids overnight just
| stopped selling anything reusable, with shelves full of this
| single use shit
|
| Of course these sell better with higher margins than the old
| liquid bottles. Hope they get taxed into oblivion, wayyy worse
| for society than an equivalent box of cigarettes
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Still waiting to find one of those - so far I've only found the
| 500mAh versions.
| daneelsan wrote:
| Scott's thots part 2
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Didn't he short out the battery when snipping both wires at the
| same time?
|
| Neat idea though, will see if i can find any.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Fortunately it was just the atomiser wires - so it briefly
| powered on before it was snipped off.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-17 23:00 UTC)