Disposable Artefacts

Vapes are designed to be sleek, futuristic, and digital; they are more gadgets than cigarettes. Hell, there’s even a whole category of smartphone vapes out there.  Some users treat them as so disposable they don’t even bother with a bin, just tossed onto pavements, gutters, and bar floors. That’s the trick: they’re designed to feel high-tech, but made to be thrown away. It’s not just the device that’s disposable, it’s the whole experience.

The Illusion of Design, Identity & Flavour

Vaping isn’t just about nicotine, it’s about identity. Farrimond (2017) notes that for some users, “vaping is a hobby in its own right.” But it’s more than that. Vapes aren’t just nicotine delivery systems; they’re brands, experiences, and statements. Big Tobacco knew for decades that smoking wasn’t just a habit: it was an image. The vaping industry has taken that playbook and injected it with steroids.

Flavour is at the heart of it. Someone who picks Cotton Candy Ice over Tobacco Classic isn’t just choosing a taste; they’re choosing who they want to be. Self-concept theory (Sirgy, 1982) suggests that people buy products that match their ideal self-image, and vape companies know it. Fruity, neon, sugar-coated flavours make vaping feel fun, fresh, and nothing like cigarettes. Marketing theory backs this up, sensory branding (Krishna, 2012) hooks people in with taste, colour, and nostalgia. These aren’t just e-liquids; they’re memories of sweets, slushies, childhood indulgence. It’s not about needing nicotine, it’s about wanting the experience.

And it’s everywhere. Step into any public space, and you’ll see the telltale wisp of vapour, at bus stops, outside offices, even drifting through supermarket aisles. In bars, it’s even more blatant. No one steps outside for a vape; no one hides it. No bouncer is kicking out the guy with the Elf Bar, no bartender is telling the girl exhaling blue raspberry mist over the table next to you to put it away. And that’s exactly the point. Vaping isn’t just socially acceptable, it’s designed to be. It blends in and feels effortless. No lingering smell, no yellowed fingers, none of the baggage of cigarettes. Vapes are just another accessory, another habit that looks as sleek and disposable as the device itself.

The Environmental Disconnect

Vaping is sold as the cleaner, safer alternative to smoking, no tar, no ash, just vapour that vanishes in seconds. But the devices don’t disappear with it. The UK bins nearly 5 million disposable vapes every week, that’s eight per second. They’re made with lithium, copper, and plastic, but 73% of vapers throw them straight in the bin. Only 17% recycle them.
They don’t just vanish. They pile up in landfills, litter the streets, and spark waste fires. The lithium alone could power nearly 5,000 electric vehicles a year, instead, it’s wasted.

Artefacts of Consumption

This project is about that disconnect, between design and reality, between something that feels futuristic and the waste it leaves behind. Vapes are built to be sleek, effortless, disposable. And that’s exactly the problem. By scanning discarded vapes, I document their afterlife, exposing the illusion of high-tech sophistication to reveal what they really are: mass-produced, short-lived plastic shells with a hidden environmental cost.

Digital scans are a way of preserving, examining, and recontextualising objects, capturing them with forensic clarity before they disappear. By scanning discarded vapes, I strip them of their disposability, turning them into artefacts to be studied rather than ignored. The process forces us to look closer at what we so easily consume and cast aside.

These objects were rubbish, left on the pavement, crushed by traffic, swept away with the rest of the waste. But what happens when we stop and look? When we examine them not as trash, but as evidence of a larger system of consumption? That’s where this project begins.