A recycling fee now sits on covered battery-embedded products in California. Electronic cannabis vaping devices sit outside it. That carve-out is statutory, not a rumour, and it matters for a hardware trade that still has to explain what happens to leftover lithium. A Discount Vape Pen analysis of Ahrefs monthly volume through August 2026 finds that four waste and take-back terms together draw about 630 searches a month in the United Kingdom and about 620 in the United States.
The two markets do not match on throwaway demand. US search for “disposable vape” is about 42,000 a month, more than double the UK’s about 18,000. They do match on how to get rid of one. “Vape recycling” itself is about 350 a month in the UK against about 150 in the US. Search is the leftover after two different legal designs: a UK sales ban, and a California fee that covers many gadgets with batteries inside, then excludes vapes.
Marc Pitts, co-founder at Discount Vape Pen, an online vaping store based in New Jersey that sells refillable 510-thread cartridge batteries, put the policy split in one sequence.
“The UK made throwaway vapes illegal. California put a recycling fee on gadgets with batteries inside, then carved vapes out of it. Search is the leftover. People on both sides of the Atlantic are still typing how to get rid of a lithium cell that was never designed to be taken apart.”
The California detail has to stay precise, because nicotine hardware and cannabis hardware are easy to blur and the statute does not blur them. Senate Bill 1215 put a consumer recycling fee on covered battery-embedded products from 1 January 2026. From 1 August 2026, CalRecycle may adjust that fee annually. That August date is fee-adjust authority. It is not the date vapes joined the fee. They did not. Electronic nicotine delivery systems, including electronic cannabis vaping devices, are statutorily excluded. A 510 cartridge battery used with a cannabis cart is still a vape device for that carve-out.
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control still treats electronic nicotine delivery systems as hazardous waste, P075, even when empty. Exclusion from a recycling fee is not the same as permission to put the cell in a household bin. The fee funds one programme. Hazardous-waste rules sit in another. Cannabis accessories that use 510-thread batteries inherit both facts: no CBEP fee line at the till, and a waste code that still treats the spent device as hazardous.
The United Kingdom took a different route and still landed on the same search volume. Defra‘s single-use vapes guidance, updated 3 July 2025, says leftover single-use stock must be recycled. Reusable means rechargeable and refillable, and a replaceable coil if a coil is present. Vapes are WEEE. Distributors must offer take-back. That leftover-stock duty is a recycling duty, not a second sales window.
Pitts was clear that 510 kit should not be dressed up as an authorised e-cigarette.
“A 510 battery is hardware. It is not one of the 45 FDA-authorised e-cigarettes, and we do not pretend otherwise. What the search data shows is that disposal is now a UK-scale question, not a footnote to a ban that already happened.”
The FDA count is a nicotine-product authorisation count. A 510-thread battery is not on that list, and cannabis cartridge hardware is not on it either. The lithium cell is the same waste problem either way. California’s fee programme still excludes both as ENDS, including electronic cannabis vaping devices.
The search basket Discount Vape Pen used is four indexed phrases: vape recycling, recycle vape, how to dispose of a vape, and vape battery recycling. UK volumes run about 350, 10, 200 and 70, totalling 630. US volumes run about 150, 10, 400 and 60, totalling 620. Two terms, lithium vape waste and replaceable vape battery, are not indexed in either country and were omitted from the totals, not treated as zero. Brand terms were not included. Disposable comparison terms were disposable vape and single use vape.
A refillable 510 battery is hardware. California did not bring it into the embedded-battery recycling fee on 1 August 2026. The UK still requires leftover single-use stock to be recycled, and still requires distributors to offer take-back.
Methodology
Monthly search figures are Ahrefs Keywords Explorer estimates for the United States and the United Kingdom through August 2026. Combined waste totals cover four indexed terms only. Unindexed terms were omitted. Where California law is cited, 1 August 2026 is CalRecycle’s authority to adjust the covered battery-embedded product fee annually. It is not a start date for a vape fee. Electronic nicotine delivery systems, including electronic cannabis vaping devices, remain excluded.
