Vape hardware is one of the cannabis industry’s most persistent waste problems. Fernway launched the first take-back program in 2022, and this summer opened its dropboxes to any brand’s device.
The New York episode of Kicking Back, High Times’ World Cup road series, includes a brief stop at The Travel Agency on Fifth Avenue, where a member of the Fernway team walks the crew through a recycling dropbox positioned near the register. Many participating retailers offer incentives to customers who recycle, and Fernway collects the devices for processing.
The moment passes quickly in an episode built around soccer and cannabis culture in New York City, but it points to one of the more persistent operational problems in legal cannabis: what happens to vape hardware once the oil runs out?
The Waste Problem Behind the Vape Category
A used cartridge or all-in-one device is not made of a single material. It combines a lithium-ion battery, a metal housing, a heating element, and trace amounts of cannabis oil. That mix places it in a regulatory gap, because battery waste is governed by one set of rules and cannabis waste by another, while a spent vape qualifies as both.
The consequences are practical. Most curbside recycling programs will not accept these devices, and many consumers are unsure how to dispose of them, so the hardware ends up in household trash. Beyond landfill impacts, lithium-ion cells can ignite when they are crushed in a compactor or on a sorting line, making proper disposal a workplace safety issue as much as an environmental one.
The industry has been asking whether vape pens can go green and dispensaries have been experimenting with incentive-based take-back and retailers have built recycling programs from scratch in the absence of industry standards. The assessment has remained consistent. The materials …
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Author: High Times / High Times
