Vape waste: the harm that lingers
With more Filipinos—young and old—turning to e-cigarettes, a growing concern is often overlooked: Where do empty vapes go?
Few are aware that these devices are classified as electronic waste (e-waste) and must be properly disposed of at registered treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) facilities.
Take, for instance, Dos (not his real name), who had no idea that vapes, whether disposable or reusable, should not be thrown out with regular trash.
The 20-year-old civil engineering student, who has been vaping since 2015, told the Inquirer he keeps used vapes in a box to track his consumption.
“I only switched to disposable vapes in 2023, and since then, I have collected over 150 of them inside a box for remembrance. This is the first time I heard that vapes or e-waste need to be disposed of in certain facilities,” he said in a phone interview.
Young users
Dos empties two to three disposable vapes in a month, depending on the brand or “hits,” which refers to the number of inhalations of vapor from the device.
There were no recent data on the tally of vape users in the country, but according to the 2019 Global Youth Tobacco Survey, 14 percent or one in every seven Filipino youth age 13 to 15 years old is already using e-cigarettes, translating to almost a million young users.
The 2021 Global Adult Tobacco Survey showed that 5.7 percent, or about 4.4 million, among those age 15 to 34 years old, have used vape, or heated tobacco products (HTPs).
In June this year, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said more young people are vaping—from 11.7 percent of the youth population in 2015 to 24.6 percent in 2019.
If this continues, Herbosa said the government will have to deal with more smoking-related ailments, such as lung and oral cancers, atherosclerosis, and other respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
He warned that oils used to give certain flavors to vapes were found to be harmful to the body, leading to various diseases, including a new one called E-cigarette or Vaping product use-associated Lung Injury, or EVALI.
Top producer in SEA
Based on latest data from the Environment Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the country generated 4,681.99 metric tons of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in 2023 and 5,010.27 MT in 2024.
But the EMB said its M506 generation data do not provide a specific breakdown by e-waste type. Vapes are instead classified under the “general category of e-waste” with “no separate data.”
Environmental group EcoWaste Coalition campaigner Jover Larion, citing the Global E-Waste Monitor, said the Philippines is one of the top e-waste producers in Southeast Asia, generating 540 million kilograms (540,000 MT) in 2022—third to Indonesia and Thailand.
He said authorities do not track how much of the country’s collected e-waste consists of discarded e-cigarettes and similar devices.
“While hard data is not available, it is not uncommon to see littered vapes, especially the disposable ones, posing risks of environmental contamination due to their plastic and chemical components,” Larion said in an email interview.
Special waste
He added that, though there are 153 registered TSD facilities in the country, most e-waste is “often disposed of along with organics, recyclables, and residuals” and “often gets buried in dumps or landfills.”
“While there are government- and company-led e-waste management initiatives, a huge portion of the country’s e-waste is managed by the informal sector, including waste pickers, e-waste dismantlers, and junk shop operators,” Larion said.
Under Republic Act No. 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, e-waste is defined as a special waste that must be handled separately from other residential and commercial wastes due to its toxicity.
“E-waste, formally referred to as WEEE, refers to electronic or battery-powered products that are broken, obsolete, nearing the end of their useful life, and discarded,” Larion said.
Examples of e-waste are refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, fans, TVs, microwaves, toasters, irons, tools, toys, computers, laptops, mobile phones, lighting devices and batteries. Electronic smoking devices, such as e-cigarettes or vapes and HTPs, also fall under this category.
In a 2024 report, nonprofit news organization The Conversation tore down a standard, single-use vape and discovered that these devices are also pollution hazards. They contain substances found in antifreeze and paint solvents.
E-waste in general, according to Larion, can contaminate ecosystems and pose serious threats to public health if not managed properly. They carry hazardous chemicals, such as “cadmium, lead, mercury, and other heavy metals, polybrominated flame retardants, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and other chemicals of very high concern.”
He explained that “unsound dismantling” or practices such as “scavenging, dumping on land or in water bodies, landfilling along with regular waste, open burning or heating, acid baths or acid leaching, stripping and shredding plastic coatings, and manual disassembly of equipment,” of e-waste produces toxic pollutants that contaminates air, water, and soil.
The “most effective” way for government to address vape waste pollution is to implement an upstream solution or the phase-out of electronic smoking devices (ESDs), Larion said, citing an April statement from EcoWaste and Action on Smoking and Health Philippines.
Implementing stricter use
ESDs are e-cigarettes, vapes, HTPs, and other similar electronic devices that may contain tobacco, nicotine, e-liquids, and even derivatives of cannabis or drugs of concern.
Other options, he said, are implementing stricter use, sale, marketing, and access regulations, behavior change to reduce prevalence and consumption, stricter packaging requirements, and higher taxes.
Larion also echoed the view that there is “no reasonable method to collect” discarded butts from regular cigarettes and ESDs, and even tobacco-containing heat sticks or plugs in HTPs.
“And even if some cigarette filters and used ESDs can be collected, there is no practical way to recycle them,” he added.
“ESDs are also mostly plastic and full of toxins, with the added problem of the batteries and other electronic components ending up as e-waste. Separating the batteries and metal parts from the plastic shell is a prerequisite to recycling, but there is no known mechanical way to do that. Even if there was, the danger of fires and leaching makes recycling impractical,” Larion explained.
Options
He suggested implementing comprehensive policies and regulations aimed at preventing and reducing e-waste pollution, such as through extended producer responsibility, where manufacturers and importers are made responsible for the collection, recycling, and treatment of their products when they reach end-of-life.
Larion added that the electronics industry must resort to clean production and sustainable design practices so that products or devices are not only safe for use but also for recycling, adding that the government could incentivize it.
He also raised the need to ban e-waste imports and ratify the Basel Convention Ban Amendment, an international law that provides a country with legal protection against the illegal traffic of hazardous and other wastes.
