This article appears in our March print issue. You can pick up a copy on newsstands around campus, or at our newsroom in room 520 in the University Center.
While walking into school one day in February, I saw a handful of students vaping, counted five Juul pods on the ground, and over 20 cigarette butts scattered on the sidewalk outside the University Center.
At a university where the students are so openly proud to be sustainable and Earth-conscious, littering the sidewalks with Juul pods and cigarette butts is an interesting way to show it. As the climate crisis escalates, more and more people are committed to making the world a more sustainable place, and everyone can do that in their own way.
Of course, not everyone that vapes says they are interested in sustainability, and not every sustainability-conscious person vapes, but hypocrisy is something I’m sure many of you have noticed at The New School.
A few months ago, I helped conduct a survey in the UC lobby where we asked passing New Schoolers if they thought cigarette butts or Juul pods were better for the environment. Some said Juul pods because they are refillable, others said cigarette butts because they are paper — but in reality, neither of these things is better than the other. Both are hurting the environment.
I was doing this survey because I am double majoring in Journalism + Design and Interdisciplinary Science at Lang. Being exposed to classes that relate to more than one branch of knowledge has taught me to holistically look at our effects on the environment.
How do college-age students get into vaping? “My grandpa smokes, so growing up around that I told myself I wouldn’t touch cigarettes. Now I’m at a point that when I don’t have the vape, it’s all I can think about,” said Wind Kuphirun, a second-year fashion student at Parsons in a recent New York Magazine article.
Kuphirun fell into an addiction that has changed his life. In regard to the environmental effects, “The plastic waste, all the packaging, it is almost hypocritical because we are trying to reduce waste but we are constantly contributing because of our addiction,” he said via email.
I’ve tried vaping before. It’s hard not to, e-cigarettes are everywhere: in tote bags, pockets, purses, and classrooms. The sleek and discreet look of many e-cigs has made them incredibly popular because they are easy to carry around and use in public. Juul Labs’ sales increased 641 percent — from 2.2 million devices sold in 2016 to 16.2 million devices sold in 2017, according to The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “Our mission is to transition the world’s billion adult smokers away from combustible cigarettes, eliminate their use, and combat underage usage of our products,” according to the Juul website.
Juul’s mission includes combating the underage use of their products, however Juul labs “purchased ad space in its early days on numerous youth-focused websites, including those of Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, Seventeen magazine and educational sites for middle school and high school students” according to The New York Times.
Sadly, vaping recently affected my hometown of Grosse Pointe, MI when a teenager named Daniel Ament needed a double lung transplant because of his vaping addiction. “I spent 29 days on life support as a 16-year-old and I only had a 10% chance of survival… I lost 50 days of my memory, 40 pounds, and all of my muscles atrophied, which means I basically lost all of my muscles so I couldn’t even walk,” Daniel said in an article from the Detroit Free Press.
My mom told me that Daniel is working to help other students who vape learn from his experience. I live in a town with a pretty tight-knit school system, and when something happens to a student everyone knows about it. Daniel’s story is scary, but he is telling it so he can hopefully make a change in our community.
Something that could also affect the health of teens like Daniel are disposable vapes. There has been a recent rise in disposable, single-use vape devices that have changed the game. This is a result of the loophole in the Trump administration’s ban on flavored vape cartridges for refillable devices and it doesn’t apply to the single-use vapes, according to The New York Times.
The popularity of disposable e-cigarettes poses a threat to the environment as well. The continual purchase of different disposable vapes such as Puff Bars, Mojo Disposable Vapes and so many more increases the production of these devices, and since they are single-use they will need to keep producing more to keep up with the high demand. Producing and disposing of these devices is bad for the planet.
The truth is that vaping is not only dangerous for your health but also for the environment. And in a school that is so environmentally conscious, it’s surprising that so many students continue to use Juuls, disposable vapes, and other nicotine devices that pollute the planet. Is this accidental hypocrisy the subconscious byproduct of following the sustainability trend?
The environmental consequences of vaping are overlooked because we like how vaping makes us feel. We are addicted to the nicotine and the buzz that comes with inhaling the chemicals into our lungs. That’s the danger, not realizing how bad something actually is because it’s popular.
I am not perfect. Sometimes I use plastic bags if I forget my reusable ones, sometimes I fall asleep with a lamp on, or forget to recycle a bottle or two.
I really hope you can see the danger that vaping poses to yourself as well as the environment, and how it is important to be aware of what you say versus what you do. Are you making a conscious effort to be sustainable for the health of the Earth, or is it something that you do when it works for you?