UK Grad Uses Discarded Vapes to Power E-Scooter, Fights E-Waste

A graduate in the UK is sending a message to Vape manufacturers, showing that their batteries aren’t as disposable as they claim.

Tobiasz Stanford, a special effects graduate of Wiltshire, has found a way to charge his e-scooter, that he bought on eBay, with 80 lithium ion-batteries that he recovered from vapes. Stanford said he did this to prove that vapes are not as expendable as their producers indicate.

The scooter is now capable of reaching top speeds around 25km an hour, getting up to six miles in a single charge.

"The only downfall is that it's quite noisy, but other than that the performance is crazy,” said Stanford.

Stanford realized that vapes use lithium-ion batteries and that they could be recharged after dismantling a few. After recharging the batteries, Stanford found that after one cycle, they could function like new.

"I got all of the batteries for free and found a cheap offer for a scooter on eBay. The scooter didn't have good range and could only go to 16 kilometers per hour," Stanford said. "It took me a month or two to get it together and I had to be careful wiring up the batteries, but now the scooter works better with the vape batteries than it did before."

Stanford said that his scooter is a commentary on waste and that he is upset by the amount of vapes he sees thrown onto the street. Especially when those vape batteries can power a scooter.

"They're very active still yet they're marketed as disposable. It needs to stop,” said Stanford.

"When those chemicals break down lithium will start to spill out. The consequences of that will be ridiculous. It will happen over time. We need to do what we can to stop this from happening, and that includes banning disposable vapes."

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