Latest news with #LucasGutterman
Fast Company
16-07-2025
- Science
- Fast Company
Americans throw out 5.7 disposable vapes every second
The majority of e-cigarette sales now come in the form of disposable vapes, meaning that when someone has taken the last puff, that vape—and its lithium ion battery and plastic casing—go right into the trash. Americans now throw away an incredible number of these disposable vapes: nearly 500,000 every day, or about 5.7 vapes per second. That number comes from the latest vape waste report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which looked at 2023 data. And vape waste is increasing, the public advocacy group found. In 2022, U.S. PIRG documented that Americans threw out 4.5 disposable vapes per second. Disposable vapes are a 'particularly insidious' form of pollution for a few reasons, says Lucas Gutterman, the Designed to Last campaign director with PIRG. For one, these devices contain nicotine, a toxic chemical that can leach into water and soil, harming wildlife and ecosystems. They're also made of plastic that isn't recyclable, and which also spreads toxins and microplastics into the environment. Increasingly, disposable vapes double as digital gadgets, with screens that show animations or include built-in games or speakers to play music. That means all this trash is a type of electronic waste, so each disposable vape tossed is like 'throwing away miniature computers after a few days of use,' Gutterman says. Those lithium ion batteries in disposable vapes are made using critical minerals that require mining. Laptops, cellphones, and electric vehicles all use lithium ion batteries too. The amount of lithium used in the batteries of disposable vapes sold every year weighs nearly 30 tons, according to U.S. PIRG—equivalent to the amount of lithium needed to create 3,350 EV batteries. Mining is also tied to human rights abuses, and in 2023, a TikToker explained in a viral video that she was quitting vaping as a way to help people in Congo, which currently supplies 70% of the world's mined cobalt. When disposable vapes are tossed into the trash and make their way to recycling and waste facilities, those lithium ion batteries can also cause fires because the devices get caught and crushed in machinery. The report estimates that disposable vapes cause $95 million of damage from waste facility fires each year. When disposal vapes don't go into these facilities, they can pollute the environment directly. If a disposable vape is tossed on the street, it can be swept into a storm drain, travel through streams and rivers, and end up in the ocean or along the coast. Predictably, disposable vapes are becoming a dominant source of beach pollution: According to the Surfrider Foundation, from 2021 to 2024 volunteers have seen a 150% increase in vapes among litter collected during beach cleanups. Disposable vapes are a serious threat, says Kelsey Lamp, oceans campaign director with the Environment America Research & Policy Center, because they include three types of waste in one: 'They're hazardous waste, since they contain nicotine and heavy metals; they're electronic waste with batteries and circuits; and they're plastic waste that never biodegrades,' she says. Studies have found that vape liquids decrease the hatching success of fish embryos and cause DNA damage, among other effects, plus the plastic casings can both carry toxins and break down into microplastics. Some states are taking action against disposable vapes. California banned flavored tobacco products, which led to a 52% decrease in disposable vape sales. Massachusetts also banned flavored e-cigarettes, resulting in a 74% drop in disposable vape sales. But Lamp and U.S. PIRG urge legislators to take more action and ban disposable vapes across the country. 'We wouldn't dump 30 tons of lithium directly into our ocean. We wouldn't pour thousands of pounds of nicotine into our waterways. Yet that's exactly what we're doing by allowing disposable vapes to pollute our waterways,' Lamp says. 'Our oceans are already under pressure from rising temperatures, overfishing, and land-based pollution. We cannot afford to add this entirely preventable source of toxic waste to the mix.'
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WIRED
28-02-2025
- WIRED
So You Bought a Humane Ai Pin. Here's What You Can Do Next
Humane's Ai Pin stopped working today, turning the year-old wearable—which cost millions to build—into a paperweight. Here are some alternatives if you'd rather avoid the e-waste. Photograph: Julian Chokkattu If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED As of today, the Humane Ai Pin is dead—less than a year since its launch. Following an acquisition by HP, Humane shut down many of the core features of the artificial intelligence-powered wearable and deleted user data, rendering it useless. Yes, some functions remain, like checking battery life (useful!), but you can't access the voice assistant. If you spent $700 on the Ai Pin, you might be wondering what you can do now. These are the risks of being an early adopter, but not getting a refund on a device bricked before the warranty is even up feels like a rip-off. Humane sold roughly 10,000 units, though daily returns were outpacing sales at one point, so there are even fewer Pins in the world. Still, that's thousands of effectively useless devices. It's a blip in the amount of e-waste generated in a year around the world—already at a crisis point—but Humane really should have offered a more responsible approach with the Ai Pin's demise. There might not be a way to get your money back, though, if you bought the pin in October of 2024 (for some reason), you might fall under the typical 120-day window to issue a chargeback with your credit card. There are some alternative options, however. Let's explore. File a Complaint With the FTC Killing a product consumers have spent money on is 'unfair and deceptive.' That's what Lucas Gutterman told WIRED via email. He's the campaign director of the Designed to Last campaign at Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG). 'When we buy something with advertised features, we should get what we pay for, and when we get ripped off the law should protect us,' Gutterman says. 'I urge everyone who purchased a Humane AI Pin to file a complaint with the FTC so they can step up and protect consumers.' Photograph: Federal Trade Commission Last year, a coalition of groups like US PIRG and Consumer Reports sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging the agency to address 'software tethering,' described as the use of software to control and limit the function of a device after someone buys it. The FTC subsequently conducted a study that attempted to determine software support commitments for more than 180 products, only to find that 'nearly 89 percent of the manufacturer's web pages for these products failed to disclose how long the products would receive software updates.' Humane's warranty states that the 'software and software functionality' are excluded, which is often the case on many connected products. But the study also noted that it's deceptive if manufacturers market a device's features but then fail to provide software updates to maintain those capabilities—it may violate the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, which was enacted in 1975 to protect consumers from unfair disclaimers in warranties. 'Without transparent labeling of length of software support, or by taking away key features that were advertised, manufacturers might be violating the FTC Act by deceiving consumers," Gutterman says. "Paying for a $700 product that's supposed to work, and then being told it will suddenly stop working, is a 'harm consumers cannot avoid,' although it's one that Humane could have humanely avoided before they shipped e-waste-to-be." You can file a complaint with the FTC here. Pressure Humane to Open Up the Software Sometimes, when companies stop delivering updates to products and shut down core features, a devoted community comes to the rescue to revive or maintain capabilities of the product (or mod it to do something else). We've seen this time and time again, like with the iPod, the Game Boy, or even the Pebble smartwatch. The Humane Ai Pin may not have enough doting admirers up for the task, but this process would be made simpler if Humane released the keys to the software. Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, says Humane should follow Pebble's lead and open the device up. Either that or we'll have to wait for someone to find a vulnerability and jailbreak the Ai Pin to write custom software for it. Humane did not respond to our request for comment. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. What could you do with this little wearable pin? Wiens had some ideas. 'You could just use it as a Walkie-Talkie. … A pin that talks to the internet, has a camera and microphone, sounds pretty cool. It's like a Star Trek communications pin." Dispose or Disassemble It If you want to just get rid of the thing, Wiens says to make sure you remove the battery first and then take it to an e-recycler. We also have a detailed guide on how to responsibly dispose of your electronics. Make sure you do the same for the other accessories that came in the box, though you can easily repurpose Humane's nifty charging adapter and the nice braided cable. Alternatively, you can use a service like Grid and have the company deconstruct and frame the Humane Ai Pin, so you can hang it up on the wall and remind yourself every day of the $700 you lost. I know it's a little hard to think about spending more money on this wearable, but at least it'd look cool. You could turn your Ai Pin into a 'unique framed artwork' and commemorate the $700 you lost. Photograph: Grid Grid accepts custom orders, so I asked the company if it would consider the Ai Pin. The answer is yes—for a cool $90, which includes design, materials, and shipping. 'We have carefully examined the structure of the Humane AI Pin and can confirm that we are able to provide a deconstruction and framing service for it. If anyone is interested in preserving their AI Pin as a unique framed artwork instead of letting it go to waste, they can definitely reach out to us.' You can email support@ to inquire about this custom request. Use It as a Paperweight or Keep It Safe The Ai Pin is more than up to the complex task of weighing down paper! Photograph: Julian Chokkattu It's not the heftiest thing in the world, but the Ai Pin can do the complex job of a paperweight. Or you can keep it in the box and put it away somewhere safe. In 50 years, you'll accidentally find it in the attic and then you can tell your grandkids how this little gadget was once—for a fleeting moment—supposed to be the next big thing.
