A ban on this environmental offender is needed!

The disposable e-cigarette is considered a healthier alternative to the classic cigarette. But that's where the advantages end. It's time for the German government and the European Union to finally ban the colorful environmental polluters with lithium-ion batteries – before we literally suffocate from them. A comment.

The disposable e-cigarette as a “healthy” alternative

Smoking is harmful to your health! After decades of intensive research, health companies, business and politics have finally come to this valuable conclusion. Hallelujah! That is why old tobacco companies and new e-cigarette start-ups are flooding the market and flooding Germany with disposable e-cigarettes.

Although e-cigarettes are by no means healthy – like the good old apple, for example. Nevertheless, research and medicine agree that e-cigarettes are significantly healthier than conventional cigarettes because of the vaporization process. E-cigarettes are the first step in the right direction, especially for quitting smoking.

Social media offensive seduces more and more young people

Fortunately, that's it for the advantages. Now let's move on to the disadvantages. There are quite a few of them. Let's start with the fact that disposable e-cigarettes are easy to market thanks to their stylish, colorful appearance – much better than the old cigarettes.

Unfortunately, this means that more and more influencers are holding the funky smoking substitute products in front of the camera. And because these digital opinion leaders are idolized by many young people, the smoking rate among teenagers and young adults is rising again significantly, as a study by the University of York shows.

A development that should require intervention. Actually.

Who needs a lithium-ion battery?

Now, it is not without reason that harmful products such as tobacco or alcohol have to comply with strict advertising guidelines, which apparently does not apply to disposable e-cigarettes. But if we ignore even this factor, we have to face the fact that the colorful disposables are the biggest polluters of our time.

Just take a walk through big cities like Berlin, Cologne or Frankfurt. There are disposable e-cigarettes on every corner.

To enable the vaporization process to take place, every disposable e-cigarette is equipped with a battery. In most cases, these are small lithium-ion batteries. There are also cables, a reservoir for the liquid and a metal casing. The environmental offender is garnished with packaging made of paper and plastic.

Wasting resources on the road

The creators of the famous Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg went to the trouble of dismantling a disposable e-cigarette. Using the “empty” lithium-ion battery from a discarded disposable e-cigarette, they were able to run a small truck for a day. According to the inventors, the battery should last for a year with multiple charges.

If you consider how many colored cigarette substitutes adorn our streets, you can imagine how much resources are being wasted. After all, every lithium-ion battery contains rare earths that are often mined under inhumane conditions.

Ban on disposable e-cigarettes: We can't wait until 2027!

So it is high time that politicians finally took action. As early as 2023, Environment Minister Steffi Lemke said after a signature campaign by the German Environmental Aid that she supported a ban on disposable e-cigarettes. Unfortunately, very little has happened since then – neither at national nor at European level.

Great Britain is already one step ahead, where the end of disposable e-cigarettes has been politically sealed since the beginning of 2024. It remains to be hoped that our federal minister will do her job and finally take a sustainable approach to our environment – immediately.

From 2027, the EU Battery Regulation will de facto herald the end of disposable e-cigarettes. The law states that all batteries must be replaceable and easily removable. Neither of these is the case with disposable e-cigarettes. However, ignoring the immense environmental pollution until then would not be worthy of a Green Environment Minister. Action is needed, Ms. Lemke!

A notice: This article is a commentary. This is a journalistic form of presentationwhich explicitly reflects the opinion of the author and not of the entire magazine. The commentary makes no claim to objectivity, but is intended to stimulate opinion-forming and is protected as an opinion piece by Article 5 of the Basic Law.

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