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The majority of e-cigarette sales now come in the form of disposable vapes, meaning that when someone has taken the last puff, that vapeand its lithium ion battery and plastic casinggo right into the trash. Americans now throw away an incredible number of these disposable vapes: nearly 500,000 every day, or about 5.7 vapes per second. That number comes from the latest vape waste report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which looked at 2023 data. And vape waste is increasing, the public advocacy group found. In 2022, U.S. PIRG documented that Americans threw out 4.5 disposable vapes per second. Disposable vapes are a particularly insidious form of pollution for a few reasons, says Lucas Gutterman, the Designed to Last campaign director with PIRG. For one, these devices contain nicotine, a toxic chemical that can leach into water and soil, harming wildlife and ecosystems. Theyre also made of plastic that isnt recyclable, and which also spreads toxins and microplastics into the environment. Increasingly, disposable vapes double as digital gadgets, with screens that show animations or include built-in games or speakers to play music. That means all this trash is a type of electronic waste, so each disposable vape tossed is like throwing away miniature computers after a few days of use, Gutterman says. Those lithium ion batteries in disposable vapes are made using critical minerals that require mining. Laptops, cellphones, and electric vehicles all use lithium ion batteries too. The amount of lithium used in the batteries of disposable vapes sold every year weighs nearly 30 tons, according to U.S. PIRGequivalent to the amount of lithium needed to create 3,350 EV batteries. Mining is also tied to human rights abuses, and in 2023, a TikToker explained in a viral video that she was quitting vaping as a way to help people in Congo, which currently supplies 70% of the worlds mined cobalt. When disposable vapes are tossed into the trash and make their way to recycling and waste facilities, those lithium ion batteries can also cause fires because the devices get caught and crushed in machinery. The report estimates that disposable vapes cause $95 million of damage from waste facility fires each year. When disposal vapes dont go into these facilities, they can pollute the environment directly. If a disposable vape is tossed on the street, it can be swept into a storm drain, travel through streams and rivers, and end up in the ocean or along the coast. Predictably, disposable vapes are becoming a dominant source of beach pollution: According to the Surfrider Foundation, from 2021 to 2024 volunteers have seen a 150% increase in vapes among litter collected during beach cleanups. Disposable vapes are a serious threat, says Kelsey Lamp, oceans campaign director with the Environment America Research & Policy Center, because they include three types of waste in one: They’re hazardous waste, since they contain nicotine and heavy metals; they’re electronic waste with batteries and circuits; and theyre plastic waste that never biodegrades, she says. Studies have found that vape liquids decrease the hatching success of fish embryos and cause DNA damage, among other effects, plus the plastic casings can both carry toxins and break down into microplastics. Some states are taking action against disposable vapes. California banned flavored tobacco products, which led to a 52% decrease in disposable vape sales. Massachusetts also banned flavored e-cigarettes, resulting in a 74% drop in disposable vape sales. But Lamp and U.S. PIRG urge legislators to take more action and ban disposable vapes across the country. We wouldn’t dump 30 tons of lithium directly into our ocean. We wouldn’t pour thousands of pounds of nicotine into our waterways. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing by allowing disposable vapes to pollute our waterways, Lamp says. Our oceans are already under pressure from rising temperatures, overfishing, and land-based pollution. We cannot afford to add this entirely preventable source of toxic waste to the mix.
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E-Commerce
Deadly and destructive flash flooding in Texas and several other states in July 2025 is raising questions about the nations flood maps and their ability to ensure that communities and homeowners can prepare for rising risks. The same region of Texas Hill Country where a flash flood on July 4 killed more than 130 people was hit again with downpours a week later, forcing searchers to temporarily pause their efforts to find missing victims. Other states, including New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Iowa, also saw flash flood damage in July. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agencys flood maps are intended to be the nations primary tool for identifying flood risks. Originally developed in the 1970s to support the National Flood Insurance Program, these maps, known as Flood Insurance Rate Maps, or FIRMs, are used to determine where flood insurance is required for federally backed mortgages, to inform local building codes and land-use decisions, and to guide flood plain management strategies. In theory, the maps enable homeowners, businesses, and local officials to understand their flood risk and take appropriate steps to prepare and mitigate potential losses. A federal flood map of Kerrville, Texas, with the Guadalupe River winding through the middle in purple, shows areas considered to have a 1% annual chance of flooding in blue and a 0.2% annual chance of flooding in tan. During a flash flood on July 4, 2025, the river rose more than 30 feet at Kerrville. [Image: FEMA] But while FEMA has improved the accuracy and accessibility of the maps over time with better data, digital tools, and community input, the maps still dont capture everythingincluding the changing climate. There are areas of the country that flood, some regularly, that dont show up on the maps as at risk. I study flood-risk mapping as a university-based researcher and at First Street, an organization created to quantify and communicate climate risk. In a 2023 assessment using newly modeled flood zones with climate-adjusted precipitation records, we found that more than twice as many properties across the country were at risk of a 100-year flood than the FEMA maps identified. Even in places where the FEMA maps identified a flood risk, we found that the federal mapping process, its overreliance on historical data, and political influence over the updating of maps can lead to maps that dont fully represent an areas risk. What FEMA flood maps miss FEMAs maps are essential tools for identifying flood risks, but they have significant gaps that limit their effectiveness. One major limitation is that they dont consider flooding driven by intense bursts of rain. The maps primarily focus on river channels and coastal flooding, largely excluding the risk of flash flooding, particularly along smaller waterways such as streams, creeks, and tributaries. This limitation has become more important in recent years due to climate change. Rising global temperatures can result in more frequent extreme downpours, leaving more areas vulnerable to flooding, yet unmapped by FEMA. A map of a section of Kerr County, Texas, where a deadly flood struck on July 4, 2025, compares the FEMA flood maps 100-year flood zone (red) to First Streets more detailed 100-yea flood zone (blue). The more detailed map includes flash flood risks along smaller creeks and streams. [Image: Jeremy Porter] For example, when flooding from Hurricane Helene hit unmapped areas around Asheville, North Carolina, in 2024, it caused a huge amount of uninsured damage to properties. Even in areas that are mapped, like the Camp Mystic site in Kerr County, Texas, that was hit by a deadly flash flood on July 4, 2025, the maps may underestimate their risk because of a reliance on historic data and outdated risk assessments. Political influence can fuel long delays Additionally, FEMAs mapping process is often shaped by political pressures. Local governments and developers sometimes fight high-risk designations to avoid insurance mandates or restrictions on development, leading to maps that may understate actual risks and leave residents unaware of their true exposure. An example is New York Citys appeal of a 2015 FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps update. The delay in resolving the citys concerns has left it with maps that are roughly 20 years old, and the current mapping project is tied up in legal red tape. On average, it takes five to seven years to develop and implement a new FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map. As a result, many maps across the U.S. are significantly out of date, often failing to reflect current land use, urban development, or evolving flood risks from extreme weather. This delay directly affects building codes and infrastructure planning, as local governments rely on these maps to guide construction standards, development approvals, and flood mitigation projects. Ultimately, outdated maps can lead to underestimating flood risks and allowing vulnerable structures to be built in areas that face growing flood threats. How technology advances can help New advances in satellite imaging, rainfall modeling, and high-resolution lidar, which is similar to radar but uses light, make it possible to create faster, more accurate flood maps that capture risks from extreme rainfall and flash flooding. However, fully integrating these tools requires significant federal investment. Congress controls FEMAs mapping budget and sets the legal framework for how maps are created. For years, updating the flood maps has been an unpopular topic among many publicly elected officials, because new flood designations can trigger stricter building codes, higher insurance costs, and development restrictions. A map of Houston, produced for a 2022 study by researchers at universities and First Street, shows flood risk shifting over the next 30 years as climate change worsens. Blue areas are todays 100-year flood-risk zones. The red areas reflect the same zones in 2050. [Image: Oliver Wing et al., 2022] In recent years, the rise of climate risk analytics models and private flood risk data have allowed the real estate, finance and insurance industries to rely less on FEMAs maps. These new models incorporate forward-looking climate data, including projections of extreme rainfall, sea-level rise and changing storm patternsfactors FEMAs maps generally exclude. Real estate portals like Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and Homes.com now provide property-level flood risk scores that consider both historical flooding and future climate projections. The models they use identify risks for many properties that FEMA maps dont, highlighting hidden vulnerabilities in communities across the U.S. Research shows that the availability, and accessibility, of climate data on these sites has started driving property-buying decisions that increasingly take climate change into account. Implications for the future As homebuyers understand more about a propertys flood risks, that may shift the desirability of some locations over time. Those shifts will have implications for property valuations, community tax-revenue assessments, population migration patterns, and a slew of other considerations. However, while these may feel like changes being brought on by new data, the risk was already there. What is changing is peoples awareness. The federal government has an important role to play in ensuring that accurate risk assessments are available to individuals and communities everywhere. As better tools and models evolve for assessing risk evolve, FEMAs risk maps need to evolve, too. This article, originally published July 12, 2025, has been updated with another round of flooding in Texas on July 13. Jeremy Porter is a professor of quantitative methods in the social sciences at the City University of New York. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
The feeling that you’re not quite qualified enough for a job, yet somehow managed to slip through the cracks without anyone noticing, is known as imposter syndrome. The sneaky form of self-doubt can show up across occupations (and even outside of work). But while imposter syndrome was once thought to impact women at higher rates then men, a new study reveals work environments, not an individuals gender, may be what’s actually fueling the phenomenon.The research, which was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, included six experimental studies on how competitive work environments can cause an employee to feel like an imposter. The researchers surveyed employees on how competitive their work environment was, while also collecting information on age, gender, educational level, experience level, and how competitive their personalities were. The researchers found employees were more likely to admit to feeling like imposters when they worked for an organization that emphasized competition over cooperation. Likewise, those who expressed feelings of imposter syndrome were also more likely to compare themselves to colleagues that were performing better than them. Previous research has suggested that women have higher rates of imposter syndrome. However, while women may still experience gender discrimination at work, the new research rejects the idea that imposter syndrome is inherently female. “Our findings nuance this gendered perspective as we find no evidence that women report higher levels of impostorism and/or that competitive work climates differently impact mens versus womens impostorism,” the researchers wrote. Imposter syndrome is not just a minor annoyance for those who experience itit can seriously affect mental health. The feeling of not being capable, qualified, or good enough, can lead to upticks in anxiety, depression, burnout, as well as the inability to even enjoy hard-earned successes at work. The report called for workplaces that are prone to fostering imposter syndrome in employees to examine their practices, choosing cooperation and inclusiveness over a competitive culture, rather than placing blame on employees who dont feel good enough.
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