Introducing: Blo Bar’s UK Disposable Vape Recycling Scheme, in partnership with The Bottle Club!
Participants can send in 10 of their used disposable vapes from any brand to be recycled correctly and, in return, you receive one free Blo Bar disposable vape!
With the NHS actively promoting e-cigarettes as a less harmful alternative to smoking, there are now an estimated 4.3 million adults using e-cigarettes in Great Britain in 2022. According to GOV.UK, the surge in users was up 15.2% in 2022, compared with 2.2% in 2021.
However, there is a lack of knowledge on how to dispose of vape pens, with a staggering 1.3 million of them being thrown directly into the bin and sent to landfills every week - that’s enough to cover 22 football pitches in a year.
This is a problem as disposable vapes contain lithium, which is a valuable resource also used in electric car batteries, meaning lithium is going to waste as opposed to being recycled correctly in battery drums.
With this in mind, the Blo Bar team have developed a simple recycling incentive scheme to tackle the ever-growing problem of disposable vapes being thrown in the bin: The Disposable Vape Recycling Scheme.
What is the Disposable Vape Recycling Scheme?
As some disposable vape pens allow around 600 puffs, it is very easy to get through several of them in a month or even a week - depending on how heavy a vaper somebody is. So with so many vapes at risk of being sent to landfill, unlike any other scheme, we aren’t concerned about what vape you’re sending in; they can be any brand you typically choose.
Once you are finished with 10 disposable vape pens, you can simply package them up and send them to us, where we’ll recycle them for you. This includes collecting the disposable vapes in a battery drum, provided by our disposal company partner, London Waste Services, which is then collected and taken to a local recycling centre to be recycled correctly.
How Does the Disposable Vape Recycling Scheme Work?
The step-by-step process…
Our disposable vape recycling scheme works with just eight simple steps:
Step 1: Package up your disposable vapes
Package up 10 of your empty disposable vapes in a padded envelope or jiffy bag. As we said before, these can be from any brands you like.
Step 2: Fill out the form on our website to receive postage instructions
Once you have filled out the form at the bottom of this page, you will receive an email with instructions on how to post your vapes to us
Step 3: Start your return to us
Following the postage instructions in the email we have sent to you, you will be directed to the Royal Mail returns portal. Here, the retailer you need to enter is our partner, “The Bottle Club”.
Step 4: Fill in the details of your parcel
For The Bottle Club order details, your order number will be, "123456", and for the product description, please enter, "Recycling Scheme".
Step 5: Post your used vapes
Download your Royal Mail postage label, and drop off your parcel at the nearest 24/7 Parcel Postbox or Post Office, which will then be delivered to our depot. Our address is automatically generated on the postage label, making the process super simple.
Step 6: Parcel compliance checks
Once we have received your parcel, we will check to see if it is compliant with the T&C’s of our scheme, such as the correct quantity of vapes.
Step 7: Receive your FREE disposable Blo Bar vape
Once your package has passed our compliance checks, we will email you with your unique promo code, which entitles you to one FREE Blo Bar vape and FREE delivery! It’s the least we could do as you help to save our planet.
Step 8: Your vapes are recycled
Your disposable vapes are discarded in a battery drum, provided by our disposal company partner, London Waste Services, which is then transported to a recycling centre to be recycled correctly.
Once you have completed all eight steps, simply repeat the process with your next set of ten empty vapes to responsibly recycle, and stop more disposable vapes from going into landfill.
REQUIREMENTS / T’s & C’s
- All applicants must be 18 years or older and live in Mainland UK.
- Signing up for the Blo Bar newsletter is an option and not a requirement in order to qualify.
- Applicants must provide 10 used vapes from any vape brand in order to qualify for a free Blo Bar vape.
- If more than 10 vapes are sent in one package, applicants will still only qualify for one free vape.
- If less than 10 vapes are sent, the vapes will be recycled but a free Blo Bar vape will not be rewarded
- Applicants are allowed to submit their information again for a new postage label if they wish to provide a further set of 10 used vapes to qualify for a free vape.
- The promo code each participant receives is unique, and can only be used once.
- The personal information provided to Blo Bar will be captured only to ensure delivery of your free vape and will be deleted 30 days thereafter. Answers to the questions submitted will be stored and kept anonymous.
- Blo Bar will endeavour to successfully fulfil every order placed, but will not be responsible for any packages which are delayed, lost or damaged.
- If incorrect order details are submitted, Blo Bar will not be responsible for this and will not be required to resend any packages.
- Proof of age will be required in order to process your order.
- The Blo Bar Disposable Vape Recycling Scheme will run on a trial basis and Blo Bar has the right to end the scheme at any time they wish.
- For more on our terms & conditions, please see here.
Summary Lithium Ion Process from London Waste Services’ disposal partner
The purpose of this summary is to validate the Recycling Efficiency (RE) of Li-Ion batteries according to the specification of the European Directive 2006/66/EC and the European Commission Regulation No 493/2012. The recycling process is based on a manual sorting step, a pyrolysis step in a rotary kiln for removing the plastic and volatile contents by a subcontractor, a specifically developed process to seperate non-ferrous and ferrous fractions mechanically and an external subsequent metallurgical processing step, where Cu, Ni and Co are recovered as marketable products and carbon is used predominantly as reduction agent in the process. After the data collection a mass balance of the process and finally calculated the “Recycling Efficiency” based on the weight of the material and the incorporated data analysed by an independent and certified laboratory as well as on written RE-statements of customer. The observation of two different input streams is justified because of the scrap’s variation and therefore pronounced heterogeneity, the consideration of both steps has lead finally to an aggregated number. The integrated Li-Ion recycling process of GmbH achieves a “Recycling Efficiency” (RE) of 59.3% based on the data gathered during the audit, obviously above the 50% recycling target of the European Directive 2006/66/EC. If the by-product slag is used for other purposes according to EU/496/2012, the RE of up to 100% can potentially be accounted.
