I tried to properly recycle a disposable vape. It did not go well | Emma Snaith

Single-use e-cigarettes send tonnes of valuable lithium to landfill in the UK. Why not ban them, as Australia did?

Take a walk down any busy street, and you're bound to find dozens of candy-coloured plastic cylinders littering the ground. Millions of these disposable vapes are now thrown away every month in the UK. And hidden inside each one is a lithium battery - made of a material crucial for the transition to renewables.

Last month, I found myself buying an Elf Bar disposable vape on a night out. I try not to make a habit of vaping, but it feels far too easy to pick one up when they're eyecatchingly displayed right next to the chewing gum in every corner shop. For weeks, the vape lay next to my bin. I knew I had to recycle it, but how do you actually go about doing that? I soon found myself falling down a blueberry smoke-filled rabbit hole.

Emma Snaith is deputy audience editor at the Guardian.