Disposable e-cigs

[TropicalBob]

Okay, I know where all this is heading. Taxes on cigarettes are going up, up, up. In some parts of North America, a pack is $7 now, thanks mostly to taxes. Some zealous Florida legislator (where I live) just wanted to tack another $1 a pack state tax on cigarettes. Pretty soon, we're looking at having to take out a bank loan to fill our car with gas and buy a carton of cigs at the Qwikie Mart.

In the meantime, the cost of making things in China is sinking. An e-cig starter kit can wholesale for $9.99 and that's double what it costs to make. Pretty soon, we'll have new technology to make e-cigs as disposable as regular cigs.

Yep, you buy a use-once pack of 20 e-cigs. There's no battery. You just twist the cig and chemicals mix to create heat. The cartridge contains the same nicotine as a single cigarette. You smoke it and then bend it and throw it down. Like that opening scene in "Mission: Impossible," the entire cig goes "poof" and disappears in a cloud of vapor.

[dnakr]

Pretty soon, we're looking at having to take out a bank loan to fill our car with gas and buy a carton of cigs at the Qwikie Mart.

I thought we were already there

Yep, you buy a use-once pack of 20 e-cigs. There's no battery. You just twist the cig and chemicals mix to create heat. The cartridge contains the same nicotine as a single cigarette. You smoke it and then bend it and throw it down. Like that opening scene in "Mission: Impossible," the entire cig goes "poof" and disappears in a cloud of vapor

That would be awesome; but by that time, the government will have stepped in, hiked up the prices and we will be paying around the same amount for that as we do now for regular cigarettes.

[EricD]

Yip... 7 bucks a pack at the station across the street from me. But luckily, the county line is 5 miles down the road where they are half that. Either way.... I hope not to be spending my cash there anymore, except for gas of course. Can't afford a tesla at the moment. Not to mention the cook county board just passed another sales tax increase on All sales. Supposedly, w/out it, we would have to severely cut back on public transpo. That's a huge blow to chicago's economy. So basically it looks like this. We get charged up the wazoo for gas (tax and all) for driving, then we get taxed up the wazoo again for not driving. Hmm... i'm going to have to get me some more wazoos for all the tax i'm storing. 8-)

[TropicalBob]

I wrote this initial thought on March 22 just to be "way out there". I mean, we all had quality Zippo cigarette lighters once. We refilled them with naptha, customized them with our names, occupation or military branch, cherished them. Pipe smokers got nice butane lighters with adjustable nozzles. Costly things, too.

Now we flick a Bic. Actually, we flick a cheap imitation from China. We use it up and toss it. Many things seem to have gone that route as we march toward a disposable society.

So I was just extrapolating our past experiences to e-smoking devices.

On March 27, Ruyon put the Ruyon No. 1 use-once, non-refillable e-cigar on the market.

There is almost nothing we can imagine that is too far out to come true.

[Michelle]

Personally, I think one of the advantages of e-cigs is their non-disposable nature. You don't need to find an ashtray or trash can to be able to smoke, since no trash is produced.

[Klaue]

I don't think this would be good. Let's assume that those disposable e-cigs would be used by about every smoker. So every smoker would trash ~20 probably non-biodegradable plastic sticks per day. Imagine a small/medium city with, say, 30'000 inhabitants. About a third smoke.. So per day, 10'000 smokers would trash 200'000 e-cigs. If such a cig were, say, 10 g, that would mean a daily waste of 2 tons of plastic. I can't really imagine this to be a good thing.. If the cigs were about 7 cm long and 0.5 cm in diameter, you'd have a waste of 100 m^3 (that's the sice of this thing) after just a year from this city alone.
If you ask me, a better alternative would be vending machines where you can plug in your e-cig and it refills it automatically or something like this

[bishybob]

I agree with you TB that disposables would be the way to go.
One disposable e-cig = 20 regular cigarettes. You toss it when you're done. They come in light and regular strength. Maybe different flavors. Batteries you already own and are rechargeable.
I'd be willing to pay almost as much for one of those as a regular pack of cigarettes. ($5-7 US)
Someone could make a killing if they standardized these and got them to be distributed in convenience stores.
One atomizer/cartridge combo would produce at most as much trash as 20 cigarette butts, if not less? Dunno...

There could be regular e-cigs that are refillable as well. Like what you said about cigarette lighters. Some people spend a lot and own nice Zippos or refillable butane lighters. Others go with the cheap imitations that are disposable.

We really need to get rid of the cartridge filling and just have a reservoir. Such as someone mentioned earlier the refillable cartridges for fountain pens.

C'mon Janty, you can do it!