HOW TO RECYCLE YOUR EMPTY E-CIGARETTE AND VAPE REFILLS

In this day and age, when all of the headlines are talking about global warming, reducing, reusing and recycling, we all need to make small changes to ensure the long term human health and try to minimize the impact on the environment.  As with anything that we use, we should be looking at the end of life of these products to ensure they are disposed of properly.

That is why we have introduced the SMOKO Refill Recycling Program.  Over the years we have tried to do our part to reduce our carbon footprint.  From 2019 to today, we have offset over 3x our total carbon footprint, making SMOKO one of the first Carbon Negative E-Cigarette Brands in the world!

But ensuring our empty and used e-cigarette, vape and vape pod refills and batteries did not end up in landfill was the last part of the loop we wanted to fix.

Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules on the recycling of vape products.  Because of the different types of plastic used in vape tanks, vape coils and e-liquid bottles, recycling vaping equipment was not straight forward.  Used vaping kits cannot just be put in your standard recycling bins.  

That is why we have partnered with Reconomy - one the UK's leading specialist recycling companies around, to ensure we work with our customers to keep as much of the empty e-cigarette refills out of landfill.

An e-cigarette, vape and vape pod have a number of components.  A rechargeable lithium-ion battery, a cartomizer or refill and the nicotine-containing e-liquid.  Obviously you will use the e-liquid while you vape, but the other 2 parts we would encourage that you look to properly recycle them.

There are a few components in your e-cigarette that we can now recycle.  

The E-Cigarette, Vape or VAPE Pod Refill - can be sent back to SMOKO where we will ensure they are recycled.

All packaging - any packaging that we use is fully recyclable in your normal Council recycling bins.  Plastic wrapping in the plastic recycle bins while the cardboard packaging should go in the Paper recycling bins.

Vape Batteries - all the rechargeable vape and e-cigarette batteries can be recycled by dropping them off at the Battery Recycling bins at any grocery store around the UK.  These bins are usually located close to the checkout tills.

We have tried to make recycling your E-Cigarette and Vape refills as easy as possible.  So we broke it down into 4 simple steps:

STEP 1 - Order a Collection Bag from SMOKO.  We will send this out to you with your current order.  It is FREE!

STEP 2 - Fill the Collection Bag with your empty cigalike, vape and vape pod refills until you have 1.5kg of empties.  This equates to:

E-Cigarette Refills = 300 empty refills

VAPE Refills = 150 empty refills

VAPE POD Refills = 500 empty refills

STEP 3 - Order a SMOKO Refill Recycling Package.  This is a pre-paid envelope that we will send out with your next order.  You can choose to either Drop It Off at your Local Post Office or Arrange to Collect From Home.

STEP 4 - Seal the Collection Bog, pop it into the Refill Recycling Package and send it back to SMOKO - either at the Post Office or Book a Home collection. 

We will then work with our recycling partner Reconomy to ensure your empty e-cigarette cartridges and vape pod refills are recycled and do not end up in landfill!

We would recommend you take your e-cigarette and vape battery to any major grocery store in the UK and deposit them into the Battery Recycling bins - these are generally located close to the checkout.  As they are lithium-ion batteries, Royal Mail doesn't accept multiple batteries to be sent via the post.  However, battery recycling is so important as it is very expensive to mine the various materials used in vape batteries.  

Feel free to pop these into your Recycling Collection bag and send them back to SMOKO.  We do aim to dispose of e cigarette and vape pens as best that we can.  It's these little steps that we take, to keep cigarette butts off the streets by using a vaping kit in the first place, and then ensuring we recycle vape and e-cigarette refills as much as possible.

It may seem like such a small gesture, but if every person who vapes was to dispose of e cigarette refills in a way that ensure they are properly recycled, then we can all minimize the amount of single use plastics and metals from ending up in landfill.  We would suggest that you use your vape refills to the very end to ensure there is little to no liquid residue left.

As part of our goal to be a carbon negative vape brand and to minimize our business' footprint on the environment, by creating a way for our customers to recycle their used e-cigs and e-cig equipment helps to keep unnecessary items form ending up in landfill.  We know it might seem like a small and insignificant step, but when you think about the 100's of 1,000's of vape and e cigarette refills we sell every year, it can all add up.

One of the great things about switching to vaping is we are already preventing millions of cigarette butts ending up on our streets, in our sewage systems and eventually filling the oceans. 

But by recycling your SMOKO electronic cigarette cartomizers and your vape pod refills, we are all doing our part to make the world a better place.