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(Image credit: Getty Images) In a recent DIY project, YouTuber Chris Doel salvaged 500 rechargeable batteries from disposable vapes to build a powerful power bank that runs his workshop and even his entire house. The process appears quite tedious and requires a fair amount of technical expertise, but the result takes a solid swing at addressing the growing e-waste problem.
The UK has been facing an e-waste crisis caused by disposable vapes for the past few years. In fact, a report published by Material Focus in December 2024 estimates that around 8.2 million vapes, including single-use, pod, and big-puff models, are discarded or improperly recycled each week. Doel took this as an opportunity and has been working on repurposing batteries from discarded vapes since last year. His previous projects include a fast-charging power bank and an e-bike powered entirely by recycled batteries.
His latest experiment involved collecting thousands of discarded empty vapes returned by customers to vape sellers. He then popped them open, removed the internals, and desoldered the circuitry from the battery. This extraction process roughly takes him about 3 minutes. Notably, he mentions that a battery is more or less useless if its charge drops below 3V, which meant that he had to separate the bad ones from the good ones. To simplify the sorting process, he then used a small pump to ‘puff’ air into each vape to check whether the battery still had some charge left.
Engineer creates ‘blazingly fast’ web server powered by a disposable vape
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/500-disposable-vapes-recycled-into-a-powerwall-to-power-a-house-and-workshop-enough-juice-for-up-to-eight-hours-of-home-usage-or-three-days-of-work#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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