With so much attention in the media of late, I’m sure that most people are now aware of the health benefits of switching from tobacco to e-cigarettes, but the impact of vaping on the health of the environment is often over looked.
Smokers are a big problem to tackle when it comes to healing the world – because what they exhale, flick, and throw away has an indelibly harmful effect on the environment. Electronic cigarettes are the new, cleaner kids on the block. They may just be the answer to the problem of cigarette waste that the world has been waiting for.
You only have to look at your feet as you walk down the road to see the massive impact that smokers have on the environment – you can barely walk a few metres without seeing cigarette butts or discarded packets strewn across the pavement. But did you know that according to the organisation Keep Britain Tidy smoking related litter is by far the most prevalent item of rubbish found on the streets of Britain, with cigarette butts being the single most common form of litter in the UK.
122 tonnes of cigarette butts are dropped in the UK each year, with an estimated 4.5 trillion being dropped across the entire planet. The butts are almost always made of cellulose acetate which takes up to 12 years to biodegrade so they just keep on accumulating. They are also harmful to wildlife if ingested – which is a common problem as many animals and birds mistake them for food.
There are an estimated 700,000 vapers in the UK at the moment and this figure looks set to hit 1 million by the end of the year. If we assume that these ex-smokers were on average getting through a pack of fags a day, that would mean this year alone e-cigarettes have reduced the amount of discarded cigarette butts by over 5.1 billion – which is nearly 2.25 million litres of landfill!
Plus there is the packaging to take in to account. The cartomizer refills come in packs of 5 which are the equivalent to 200 tobacco cigarettes but smaller in size than a single packet of 20. This means that they are using more than 10 times less packaging – so 10 times less deforestation and 10 times less fuel used for transportation.
Vapourlites have everything you need to start you off on your way to a cleaner you and a cleaner environment. We have an excellent range of starter kits, disposables, and accessories to help you on your way.
