Feb 12, 2025

Disposable Vapes: Understanding the Safety Concerns

If you’re an adult smoker curious whether disposable vapes are safe, you might also be wondering what disposable vapes are made of, or if they’re better than continuing to smoke. This article is going to guide you through these important questions, to help you better understand disposable vape safety.

How Do Disposable Vapes Work?

Instead of producing smoke, disposable vapes heat e-liquid to create vapour. Disposable vapes are devices that typically need to be disposed of when the e-liquid is finished.

Unlike rechargeable vapes, they usually cannot be recharged and most times come pre-charged and pre-filled with an e-liquid. How long a disposable vape usually lasts depends on the device, as well as factors like battery lifespan, tank volume and frequency of usage. Typically, disposable vapes can provide up to 500 puffs.

To help you fully understand how disposable vapes work, it may be useful to know what they are composed of.

When it comes to the internal components, a disposable vape typically includes a battery, tank, coil and e-liquid. Typically, disposable vapes are draw-activated, meaning they don’t have a button that needs to be pressed in order for the vaping experience to start.

Disposable vapes contain e-liquid, with the most common ingredients being nicotine, flavourings, Propylene Glycol (PG) and Vegetable Glycerine (VG).

Are Disposable Vapes Safe?

With disposable vapes having grown in popularity, adult users may want to know how safe they are exactly.

Vaping is not risk-free. Generally, smoke-free products as a category are not risk-free and they often provide nicotine, which is addictive. The best decision an adult smoker could make is to quit tobacco and nicotine use altogether.

However, vaping is typically less harmful than smoking cigarettes. Generally, vapes heat up the e-liquid to produce vapour instead of smoke. The smoke produced by burning a cigarette (through a process known as combustion) contains chemicals such as tar and carbon monoxide. Of course, the absence of combustion should be substantiated on a product-by-product basis.

For adult smokers who would otherwise continue using nicotine products and want to switch to a smoke-free alternative.

Important information: this does not necessarily equal a 99% reduction in risk

*“99% less” represents the average reductions in levels of a range of harmful chemicals (excluding nicotine) compared to the smoke of a reference cigarette.

**Based on the battery capacity of a newly manufactured device and a puff duration of 1 second. May vary depending on individual usage patterns.

Are Fake Disposable Vapes Safe?

One thing to remember as an adult vaper is that counterfeit disposable vapes do exist. Unregulated disposable vape devices could be unsafe. Adult vapers should purchase disposable vape devices and products from reputable manufacturers and suppliers – both online and instore.

Smoke-free products are not risk-free and provide nicotine, which is addictive. The best decision any adult smoker can make is to quit tobacco and nicotine use altogether. Smoke-free products are not alternatives to quitting and are not designed as cessation aids.

This article is for general information and educational purposes. Some of the information in this article is based on external, third-party sources and we make no representations or warranties of any kind regarding the accuracy, validity or completeness of such information.