Legislation to ban disposable vapes advances in California

The California Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee approved a CALPIRG-sponsored bill Tuesday to ban disposable vapes.

Each year, Americans throw away almost 142 million disposable vapes — 4.5 every second. 

Photo by Staff | TPIN

Vapes are small, battery-powered devices that heat a liquid substance, typically tobacco or cannabis, for the user to inhale. While some vapes allow users to replace empty liquid cartridges and reuse the device, disposable vapes are deliberately designed to make refilling impossible, confining them to a handful of uses before becoming obsolete.

According to our sister organization U.S. PIRG Eucation Fund’s 2023 report, there is no standard way to recycle disposable vapes. This means they most often end up in the trash – which is illegal in most states, since they contain hazardous materials – or on the ground, littering our streets and beaches and leaching toxic chemicals into our waterways. If they reach waste facilities, they also pose a fire hazard.

Their manufacture gobbles up precious resources like copper wire and lithium, two extremely valuable materials that not only require intensive and environmentally destructive mining operations to extract, but also could instead be used for longer lasting and more socially beneficial devices, like electric car batteries.

It is against common sense to produce any electronic device – with all of its associated circuitry, resource use and environmental hazards – just to toss it once it runs out of juice and compound our e-waste crisis.

Despite attempts by the FDA to crack down on the sale of certain kinds of disposable vapes in the U.S., they remain widely available. Many countries have already passed laws banning all disposable vapes, including the U.K. and Belgium, and several other countries are considering similar measures. It’s time for the U.S. to do the same.

California has long been a leader in environmental protections and waste reduction, Assembly Bill 762 by Assemblymembers Jacqui Irwin and Lori Wilson continues this legacy by definitively prohibiting the sale and distribution of disposable vapes across the state.

AB 762 passed the California Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee 4-1-2 and moves to the Assembly Business and Professions Committee.