A recent wave of vape pen bans across the country could have a massive secondary impact on the waste industry. Pennsylvania's Act 57 recently went into effect, banning the sale of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) that are not listed with official state Office of Attorney General Directory. The ban has the potential to impact "95% of our inventory as far as vapes are concerned," according to local retailers. The Act prohibits popular disposable brands like Geek Bar, Lost Mary, and Raz while restricting sales to a small number of brands.
In recent years, a growing body of research has studied the health impact of ENDS use, particularly among younger smokers. These studies have raised concerns not only about long-term addiction to nicotine but also exposure to potentially carcinogenic or otherwise harmful chemicals. In 2018, the U.S. surgeon general declared youth vaping an epidemic.
However, in the waste stream, vape pens have become a major offender in the industry's fastest rising problem: landfill fires caused by lithium ion batteries. The single use cartridges have become such a problem at landfills, Fire Rover, a company that tracks landfill fire statistics, explicitly called the rise in fires the "Vape Effect". 448 public fires were recorded in the U.S. and Canada by Fire Rover in 2025, breaking previous records and rising roughly sharply above the long-term average of 360 a year.
According to the company, roughly 1.2 billion disposable vapes enter North American waste streams every year. The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund’s vape waste research tracked disposal at 5.7 devices per second in 2023, up from 4.5 per second the year before. PIRG puts the annual cost of vape-driven waste facility fires at 95 million dollars or more, before accounting for what one incident does to a single site’s downtime, cleanup, and insurance posture.
Fire Rover says the pens are designed in such a way to make proper disposal exceptionally difficult. "Consumers who know a vape does not belong in the trash often put it in the recycling cart instead, which redirects the device to a materials recovery facility rather than removing it from the stream. Even someone who wants to handle it right hits a wall. Battery recycling programs need the battery on its own, but a disposable vape is built as one sealed unit. Short of prying it apart with tools, there is no way to get the cell out, so the whole device ends up in a bin anyway."
The company goes on to say, "disposable vape fires are hard to catch early for a physical reason: the first thing they produce is heat, not smoke. A cell can enter thermal runaway with no visible warning, and because the device is small, it is usually buried in a pile rather than sitting on top of one. By the time there is something to see, surrounding material is already involved."
A 2024 lithium-ion battery fire safety report released by the National Waste & Recycling Association and Resource Recycling Systems reports catastrophic losses at single stream materials recovery facilities rose by 41% between 2019-2024. As a result, insurance costs have significantly increased from less than 20 cents per $100 insured property value to as much as $10 per $100 insured. Unfortunately, due to the increasing number of batteries in our waste and recycling streams, these rates are only expected to continue to rise.
States seem to be getting the memo. In addition to Pennsylvania's recent ban, Florida's House Bill 1007 took effect back in October 1, 2024, targeting single-use disposable nicotine vapes. Additionally, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a law targeting single-use e-cigarettes, making it illegal to manufacture or import new or refurbished battery-embedded vapor devices starting Jan. 1, 2027. It also bans retail sales starting Jan. 1, 2028.
In fact, more than a dozen states now have some time of ban in regards to the production of vape pens. While most of these laws are drafted in the interest of public health rather than the prevention of landfill fires, the carry on effect of keeping our waste stream safer is very real. An up-to-date map of current vape pen laws can be found HERE.
