Comment by beAbU

Comment by beAbU 15 hours ago

I've been aware about the perfectly reusable lithium batteries inside these disposable vapes, which is egregious enough.

But the one in the FTA comes with a full fat microcontroller and USB-C connector! I'm not clear if these connectors are accessible outside or if you need to break open the packaging before being able to get to it.

Like you said: "Many layers of stupid are present here"

All that hardware must surely be worth more than half the value of the actual product!

pbhjpbhj 12 hours ago

>All that hardware must surely be worth more than half the value of the actual product!

I'm constantly struck at how bread (a pastry, say) in a plastic tray, wrapped in plastic, is so crazy to me. The effort and technology that went, and goes, into oil extraction and such - only to throw the packaging away immediately that I get home ... it's just so unsustainable.

I wonder when in the West we'll start mining rubbish dumps ('refuse sites' where household waste is buried)? Maybe we already have? I know in developing countries people spend their days manually picking over such places.

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parliament32 12 hours ago

> I wonder when in the West we'll start mining rubbish dumps
Never, because we have virtually unlimited space for landfills, and landfill tech has quietly been improving over the last few centuries, to the point that landfills are cheap, non-polluting, and entirely carbon neutral. Countries with less land mass (Europe et al) prefer incineration (mainly to save space, despite it being significantly worse for the environment and much more expensive (although with the newer energy reclamation efforts this is getting better)).
IMO it's not worth worrying about landfills too much. Household waste makes up about 3% of total landfill waste (when you add commercial/industrial/agricultural) in North America. You and your bun wrapper are truly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

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- alanbernstein 11 hours ago
  
  This is backwards, it's not about eliminating the landfill, it's about recovering the materials which were previously not scarce but now are or will be soon.
  
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- rblatz 10 hours ago
  
  I think it’s less about managing the environmental impact of landfills and more about eventually the concentration of desirable materials in landfills may end up higher than in known natural deposits. Or at least easier to refine and separate.
  
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- BizarroLand 10 hours ago
  
  Landfills are likely chock full of Aluminum, Nickel-Cadmium, Lithium, copper, brass, and all sorts of useful metals and chemicals.
  Sure, the grand majority is going to be food waste, but if you threw it all into an incinerator and melted down the ashes there is probably a decent blend of valuable material mixed in with the waste.
  
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  distances 7 hours ago
  
  You don't have separate collection for food (bio) waste?
  
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  BizarroLand 7 hours ago
  
  In the states it depends on the city/county/state and their legislation.
  Some places do, some don't.
  
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jazzyjackson 12 hours ago

The cheapness of plastic just to speaks to the enormous demand for all the other oil products sold, it's practically a byproduct.

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- carelyair 12 hours ago
  
  What will happen to the price of plastic when demand for oil starts reducing for mobility and heating with the move to electricity energy?
  
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  Dilettante_ 10 hours ago
  
  Flying pigs will deliver our food directly from the production point, no more need for packaging.
  
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  toss1 9 hours ago
  
  Not much; I used to think the same thing. But there are many ways to make the same chemicals from bio sources, either directly grown (corn or soy as feedstocks) or more processed, or bioengineered so bacteria convert some bio input to the desired chemicals
  
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- thescriptkiddie 11 hours ago
  
  somebody once said oil is too valuable to burn for fuel. the important part are the petrochemicals, but the demand for fuel is so high that's where the money is
  
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userbinator 10 hours ago

As soon as there is demand, I'm sure they'll start mining. Provided it doesn't leave the planet, everything is recycled on a long enough timescale.

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numpad0 11 hours ago

Not sure how those are related. We only eat food coming in packaging comparable to transplanted organ because companies can't afford poisoning lawsuits because humans are so expensive.
Lots of people especially those generally "up north" undermine risks and therefore costs of food poisoning, but it's real. Haven't those people seen things growing molds?

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- forty 7 hours ago
  
  How is plastic on bread related with food poisoning? Here in France baguettes are wrapped in paper and are eaten within a day or two of being made (or else they get dry). if you keep them for long enough, molds will grow on it, then you see them and don't eat that old bread (even though it's unlikely to be too bad for most people, the taste is certainly not great). I'd be surprised if anyone ever got food poisoned with bread.
  
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rglullis 15 hours ago

Between (a) component that costs tens of cents to mass produce and can be bought off the shelf and is reusable vs (b) component that needs actual experienced electronics engineers working on a single-use design that can not be repurposed later, I think we'd see that (a) might end up being less wasteful.

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afiori 14 hours ago

> can not be repurposed later
whether it can be repurposed is worth little in being wasteful if >99% go to the landfill.
> I think we'd see that (a) might end up being less wasteful.
Monetarily? sure. Environmentally? unlikely

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- jayd16 14 hours ago
  
  It's not so much that 99% go to the landfill, but this product does. Other products that use the same parts might be more reusable.
  The point is that, most likely, the controller existed before this vape. Buying an off the shelf part can be cheaper than trying to bring up some custom part, both in cost and possibly in overall resources.
  
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- rglullis 12 hours ago
  
  Environmentally, there is very little difference at the landfill if the PCB has an 8 bit microcontroller or a 64 bit ARM chip.
  The only environment-friendly solution is to forbid this product to exist in the first place.
  
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  carelyair 12 hours ago
  
  Exactly. Why not just sell a reusable vape that can be filled with the extract you want?
  
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dijit 14 hours ago

I don't follow the logic.
Because humans are expensive? Or because we can maybe re-use the components if an (expensive) human comes and retrieves the components?
Sorry for being dumb here.

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- rglullis 12 hours ago
  
  A combination of:
  - humans are expensive.
  - If you want a custom part, you will need specialized equipment to build that part.
  - If you want a custom part, you will maybe need to transport that part all around the world, while the off-the-shelf components might already be available close to your assembly plant.
  
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dole 12 hours ago

The USB-C connectors are mostly for charging, and IME it'll take 4-6 full cycle charges until most are out of vape juice and disposable so they're always accessible. The packaging usually is snap-together with no screws so it's a puzzle.

I'm still surprised to see the fancier LCDs used which range from 2x4cm - slim 1.5x3cm (Digiflower, Raz is super popular.) Most LCD vapes which range from $20-25 are starting to fall by the wayside for $13-15 vapes with simple SMD LED displays with color overlays, (Kadobar, Geek Bar, Cookies, North) easy to make 7-segments for battery/juice status. Some are elaborate with wraparound displays that I've mistaken for flexible OLED and are deceptively cheap.

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