New research has identified that two vapes are thrown away every second in the UK alone, ending up in landfill despite the fact they contain lithium, a valuable and increasingly scarce metal on which much of the high-tech economy depends. Written by Sofia Phillips from Thred. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that vapes are all the rage. Replacing one of the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, the small, brightly-coloured, single-use devices are, quite literally, everywhere.