Most people think of disposable vapes with bright plastic and flavored clouds. Chris Doel, an engineer and Youtuber, sees energy in a totally different way. “Behind every puff of a vape, there’s a battery,” he states. Each device has a tiny lithium-ion cell that can be recharged many times but is usually thrown away after only a few uses.
Chris began as a curious builder who powered an e-bike with batteries from disposable vaporizers. He has now elevated the experiment to an entirely new level.
From vape trash to a home power wall
Doel gathered 500 used e-cigarettes from nearby stores that wanted to get rid of them. He discovered what he had anticipated when he opened them: “There is a lithium-ion cell that is actually completely, fully rechargeable.”
He explain the process on a NBC News report: He wired the cells into what he proudly refers to as a “massive power wall.” He says, “Look at that,” as he stands in front of the completed setup. “It’s powering the laptop that I’m speaking to you on. It’s powering the Wi-Fi up there, all the lights. I’m completely off-grid right now.” He continued.
However, it goes beyond Wi-Fi and lights. “I’ve been able to boil water with the kettle, flip on the microwave, turn on my oven. I pretty much could power everything in my house.” He added.
In order to show how much power we’re wasting, Chris spent seven months developing the system and filming the procedure for a YouTube video, spending every night and weekend away from his full-time job as an engineer, according to NBC News.
The scale of the waste—and a messy industry
The batteries in Chris’s wall are the same ones that are typically discarded along with the rest of the vape. “These are all batteries that would have ended up in a landfill, right?” the reporter asks, pointing to the pile in the video. “Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. And all of them have got incredibly rare earth materials inside of them.” Chris answers.
A recent study by the Public Interest Research Group found that in 2023, Americans tossed away almost 500,000 disposable vaporizers every day. That’s enough lithium for more than 3,000 enormous electric car batteries in a single year.
So why aren’t all of these batteries being carefully recycled? “It’s expensive and challenging because you have to both interact with something that’s a hazardous chemical and is electronic waste,” says one expert.
The legal side is in chaos at the same time. “The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to regulate tobacco products in the United States, and almost all of these disposable vape products are not allowed to be sold.” However, they can be found everywhere. “Most vapes you see on the shelves are imported and unregulated,” according to the report.
A few governments are making an effort to react. Finding these disposable vapes has actually become more challenging in areas where flavors are prohibited. Additionally, all single-use vapes were outlawed by the UK government in June 2025. That helped, but it hasn’t stopped the supply, according to Chris: “It’s gone down, which is really good. I still am able to get hundreds and hundreds of these things.”
Rethinking what we throw away
“They’re selling the whole kit for the same price as they did the disposable vapes,” Chris says. “And you really can’t find many pods anywhere. You’re almost incentivized to keep buying the full kits and just treating them as disposable.”
Doel is now aiming higher because he has more discarded vapes than he can use: “First the bike, then the house, then possibly a car,” the reporter states.
Although his project doesn’t solve e-waste, it does show that every “disposable” vape has a battery that still has a lot of life left and a lot of potential.