English 
Nederlands 
Français The disposable cigarette, blessing or sin?
You see them more and more often: disposable cigarettes. Or rather, disposable e-cigarettes, pods or vapers. Because, of course, the traditional tobacco cigarette is always a disposable cigarette. We are talking about e-cigarettes that you cannot refill or recharge. So are they environmental polluting, health-destroying unthings or do they also have benefits? We will try to answer that question in this blog.
What is a disposable cigarette?
Like a regular e-cigarette, a disposable cigarette consists of a battery, a vaporiser and a tank for the e-liquid. The difference is, with a disposable cigarette, the battery cannot be recharged and the e-liquid cannot be refilled. Disposable cigarettes come in shapes and sizes.
Very popular these days are the shisha pens. Colourful disposable cigarettes with flavours like cola, Redbull, mint, strawberry and all kinds of other fruits and combinations. Shisha pens usually contain no nicotine. These pens are especially popular among the youth. We will talk about various aspects of them later.
Then there are the disposable e-cigarettes that serve as an alternative to the traditional cigarette. These usually do contain nicotine and often have the appearance of a regular filter cigarette.
What are the advantages of a disposable e-cigarette?
Assuming that smoking is by definition not healthy, we can note some advantages that the disposable e-cigarette has over the traditional tobacco cigarette:
- You can buy disposable cigarettes with different nicotine levels. This allows people who want to quit smoking to phase out slowly.
- The disposable cigarette has the advantage that you can buy them by the piece. Smokers thinking of quitting using the e-cigarette can thus try out how e-cigarette smoking works.
- Disposable cigarettes are handy, they fit easily into your trouser or jacket pocket.
- They are also a lot cheaper. A disposable e-cigarette is equivalent in quantity to one or two packets of cigarettes.
- You simply buy disposable e-cigarettes at the corner cigar shop.
- Suppose you are on the road and your vaper's battery runs out. Then it is handy to have a disposable cigarette on hand as an emergency solution.
People who switch from the traditional cigarette to the disposable cigarette often choose e-cigarettes that are similar in appearance to that traditional cigarette. Young people in particular often opt for the flavoured shisha pen. Therein, according to opponents, lies also the great danger of the disposable cigarette.
The disadvantages of the disposable cigarette
According to opponents of disposable cigarettes, especially the e-cigarettes with a pleasant flavour ensure that young people are introduced to smoking in a positive way. The danger, they say, is that this will make it easier for young people to switch to e-cigarettes containing the addictive substance nicotine or, worse, to switch to the traditional cigarette. These not only contain nicotine, but also produce the harmful substances tar and carbon monoxide.
Others dispute this theory. They argue that young people actually stick to their shisha pen and do not switch to the traditional cigarette. Research will still have to show which party is right.
In the Netherlands, new disposable flavoured e-cigarettes have not been allowed to be sold since 1 January 2023. Retailers may still sell their existing stock. Belgium will also ban the sale of flavoured e-cigarettes during 2023.
Harmful to the environment
One of the components of the disposable cigarette is the battery. Like other batteries, it contains substances that are harmful to the environment, mainly lithium. If you take the term "disposable cigarette" literally and just throw your e-cigarette or shisha pen somewhere when it is empty, those harmful substances will end up in the environment, which is not the intention. Even if you throw them in the bin, you are actually not doing the right thing. You should hand in the disposable cigarette at the small chemical waste or at a collection point for used batteries.
In the Netherlands, these can be found in DIY shops and supermarkets. In Belgium, Bebat handles the collection of spent batteries. There are over 23,000 collection points across the country. We advise all users of disposable cigarettes to hand in used ones there. E-cigarettes lying around only increases the chances of a ban.