A company has launched promising to diffuse the “global recycling timebomb” of thrown-away vapes.
Liberty Recycling Solutions boasts “the first automated, inert environment recycling solution” for disposable devices: a recycling machine that shreds vapes – as well as phones and electric vehicle batteries – with a four-shaft cutting shear in an inert atmosphere so they don’t catch fire.
“Most of the UK vape ‘recycling’ schemes we have encountered involve a third world-like manual process whereby the vape is cut with a pair of garden shears,” the company says, “exposing the hazardous liquids to atmosphere and the individual doing the cutting. The dangerous battery containing charge and electrolytes is then extracted and exported. Everything bar the battery is incinerated.”
Liberty’s machine processes vapes so that electrolytes and liquids are “removed and bottled off” while the other materials – shredded into 20mm shards – are vacuum dried. Once processed and dried, the materials remaining are cooled until safe to handle. They then pass via another machine to sort them into metals (cobalt and lithium salts, stainless steel, copper, aluminium), plastics and the “black mass” from the batteries.
The company’s first machine can handle 10 tonnes of vapes per week (around 400,000 vapes), but it plans to expand and “scale at pace” across Europe with its technology partner Ermafa. Having launched last month, with facilities in the UK and Croatia, it is now forging partnerships with retailers, waste management companies and vape associations.
“We want to enhance the sustainability of reduced harm nicotine products and regardless of their form, our process can handle and recycle them,” Liberty co-founder and commercial director Tim Marlow told The Grocer. “The key is to increase the number of products that are collected and processed, and we welcome innovation and further regulation in this regard. The entire lithium-ion battery space is in need of processing capability and that is why we exist no matter in what form it arrives with us.”
As well as being able to process any product with a lithium-ion battery, the company – which has secured investment from VC firm Fearless Adventures – is also offering collection bins, logistics solutions and ESG reporting dashboards.
Discarded vapes have wide-ranging environmental impacts, including from the toxicity of the nicotine liquid in disposables and pods, and the loss of precious metals such as lithium and copper.
Disposable single-use vapes – which dominate the category – are the worst offenders. Research last year by Material Focus revealed the number of single-use vapes thrown away in the UK had soared from 1.3 million to nearly 5 million per week. This is equivalent to eight per second being thrown away and not recycled.
According to electricals recycling company Gap Group, a typical disposable vape contains 0.15g of lithium and 50cms or 1.9g of copper cable. Vapes heading to landfill also pose a fire risk, with more than 700 fires caused annually by the incorrect disposal of electricals with hidden batteries, such as vapes, Material Focus said.
“We could no longer stand and see the rest of the industry take no action,” Marlow said. “So we decided to do it ourselves.”
A likely ban on disposable vapes is coming in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, to be legislated by the new government. However, the move would “absolutely not” scupper Liberty’s growth Marlow, former mergers and acquisitions director at THG, said.
“We believe that recycling should be about recovering materials, and also that the processes should be safe for the operators and environment. So at Liberty we found a solution to this problem that is scalable, safe and kinder to the environment. We set up Liberty to make a real difference. We have dared to develop and then invest,” he said.
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