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Communities can't recycle or trash disposable e-cigarettes. So what happens to them?_我的网站

尼基塔第三季

一 | 　　【导读】特朗普语出惊人，美国军队可能会被用于更大规模的干预，以降低美国国债的收益率　　大家好，简单关注一下美债的小插曲。　　美国总统唐纳德·特朗普表示，他甚至可能动用军方对债券市场进行“干预”。 WASHINGTON -- With the growing popularity of disposable e-cigarettes, communities across the U.S. are confronting a new vaping problem: how to safely get rid of millions of small, battery-powered devices that are considered hazardous waste.For years, the debate surrounding vaping largely centered on its risks for high school and middle school students enticed by flavors like gummy bear, lemonade and watermelon.But the recent shift toward e-cigarettes that can’t be refilled has created a new environmental dilemma. The devices, which contain nicotine, lithium and other metals, cannot be reused or recycled. Under federal environmental law, they also aren’t supposed to go in the trash.U.S. teens and adults are buying roughly 12 million disposable vapes per month. With little federal guidance, local officials are finding their own ways to dispose of e-cigarettes collected from schools, colleges, vape shops and other sites.“We are in a really weird regulatory place where there is no legal place to put these and yet we know, every year, tens of millions of disposables are thrown in the trash,” said Yogi Hale Hendlin, a health and environmental researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.In late August, sanitation workers in Monroe County, New York, packed more than 5,500 brightly colored e-cigarettes into 55-gallon steel drums for transport. Their destination? A giant, industrial waste incinerator in northern Arkansas, where they would be melted down.Sending 350 pounds of vapes across the country to be burned into ash may not sound environmentally friendly. But local officials say it’s the only way to keep the nicotine-filled devices out of sewers, waterways and landfills, where their lithium batteries can catch fire.“These are very insidious devices,” said Michael Garland, who directs the county’s environmental services. “They’re a fire risk and they’re certainly an environmental contaminant if not managed properly.”Elsewhere, the disposal process has become both costly and complicated. In New York City, for example, officials are seizing hundreds of thousands of banned vapes from local stores and spending about 85 cents each for disposal.HAZARDOUS WASTEVaping critics say the industry has skirted responsibility for the environmental impact of its products, while federal regulators have failed to force changes that could make vaping components easier to recycle or less wasteful.Among the possible changes: standards requiring that e-cigarettes be reusable or forcing manufacturers to fund collection and recycling programs. New York, California and several other states have so-called extended product responsibility laws for computers and other electronics. But those laws don't cover vaping products and there are no comparable federal requirements for any industry.Environmental Protection Agency rules for hazardous waste don’t apply to households, meaning it's legal for someone to throw e-cigarettes in the garbage at home. But most businesses, schools and government facilities are subject to EPA standards in how they handle harmful chemicals like nicotine, which the EPA considers an “acute hazardous waste," because it can be poisonous at high levels.In the U.S., the push to manage disposable e-cigarettes has chiefly come from schools, which can face stricter regulation if they generate more than a few pounds of hazardous waste per month. Monroe County schools pay $60 to dispose of each one-gallon container of vapes. More than two thirds of the e-cigarettes collected by the county come from schools.“Our schools were very relieved because they had confiscated so much of this material,” Garland said. “If you think of all the high schools across the country, they are in a very difficult place right now.”Lithium in e-cigarette batteries is the same highly sought metal used to power electric vehicles and cellphones. But the quantities used in vaping devices are too small to warrant salvage. And nearly all disposable e-cigarette batteries are soldered into the device, making it impractical to separate them for recycling.Disposable e-cigarettes currently account for about 53% of the multi-billion U.S. vaping market, according to U.S. government figures, more than doubling since 2020.Their rise is a study in unintended consequences.In early 2020, the Food and Drug Administration banned nearly all flavors from reusable e-cigarettes like Juul, the cartridge-based device blamed for sparking a nationwide surge in underage vaping. But the policy didn't apply to disposables, opening the door to thousands of new varieties of fruit and candy-flavored vapes, almost all manufactured in China.In recent months the FDA has begun trying to block imports of several leading disposable brands, including Elf Bar and Esco Bar. Regulators consider them all illegal, but they have been unable to stop their entry to the U.S. and the devices are now ubiquitous in convenience stores, gas stations and other shops. FDA’s tobacco chief, Brian King, said in a statement that his agency “will continue to carefully consider the potential environmental impacts” of vaping products.THE COST OF CONFISCATING DISPOSABLE E-CIGARETTESIn 2020, New York City outlawed the vast majority of e-cigarette types, banning flavors that can appeal to youngsters.City employees conduct thousands of inspections annually, and last year issued more than 2,400 citations to corner stores and bodegas selling illegal flavored products. Adding to the challenge are THC vapes sold at hundreds of unlicensed marijuana shops, a separate but related problem that has mushroomed since New York's legalization of recreational pot.Since last November, officials have seized more than 449,000 vape units, according to city figures. New York City is spending about $1,400 to destroy each container of 1,200 confiscated vapes, but many more remain in city storage lockers. “I don’t think anyone ever considered the volume of these in our community,” said New York Sheriff Anthony Miranda, who leads a task force on the issue. “There’s a tremendous amount of resources going into this effort.” A recent lawsuit against four large vaping distributors aims to recoup some of the city's costs. For now, New Yorkers who vape can bring their used e-cigarettes to city-sponsored waste-collection events.Ultimately those vapes meet a familiar fate: They are shipped to Gum Springs, Arkansas, to be incinerated by Veolia, an international waste management firm. The company has incinerated more than 1.6 million pounds of vaping waste in recent years, mostly unsold inventory or discontinued products.Veolia executives say burning e-cigarettes' lithium batteries can damage their incinerators.“Ideally we don’t want to incinerate them because it has to be done very, very slowly. But if have to, we will,” said Bob Cappadona, who leads the company’s environmental services division.Veolia also handles e-cigarettes from Boulder County, Colorado, one of the only U.S. jurisdictions that actively tries to recycle e-cigarette batteries and components.Historically, Boulder has had one of the highest teen vaping rates in the country, peaking at nearly 33% in 2017. “It was like someone flicked the switch. Suddenly e-cigarettes were everywhere,” said Daniel Ryan, principal of Centaurus High School. Beginning in 2019, county officials began distributing bins to schools for confiscated or discarded e-cigarettes. Last year, they collected 3,500. County staffers sort the devices by type, separating those with removable batteries for recycling. Disposables are packed and shipped to Veolia's incinerator. Shelly Fuller, who directs the program, says managing vape waste has gotten more costly and labor intensive with the shift to disposables.“I kind of miss the days when we had Juuls and I could take each battery out and recycle them very easily,” Fuller said. “No one has time to dismantle a thousand Esco Bars.”___AP video journalist Joseph Frederick contributed to this story from New York___Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.。

二 | 这一表态出现在记者追问美国财政部长贝森特为压低飙升的美债收益率所采取的措施时，不过特朗普的回答令人颇为困惑。　　美国财政部周三出乎华尔街意料地宣布，从下个月开始，将把长期美国国债的回购规模“至少提高一倍”。这一举措最初推动长期美债价格大幅上涨，使30年期美债收益率从几天前创下的19年高位明显回落，但此后收益率又重新走高。　　周五下午，在登上“空军一号”前，特朗普在停机坪接受记者提问。一名记者问他，是否是他要求贝森特出手干预债券市场，以及这一行动是否出自他的主意。　　特朗普回答：“没有，完全没有。他是个非常有能力的人，是他自己想这么做的。他很擅长这个。

三 | 他对债券和利率有很好的感觉，是一种非常好的天然直觉。

四 | 然后他就这么做了？对。

五 | ”　　记者随后指出：“但从那以后，收益率又涨回去了。你有没有和他讨论过其他形式的干预？他接下来还会采取其他措施吗？”　　特朗普回答：“我们有很多种干预方式，这只是其中一种。”　　随后他补充道：“终极的干预手段，是我们的军队。如果我们必须使用军队，我们就会使用。”　　贝森特周四接受采访时曾表示，特朗普政府拥有一个用于稳定债券市场的“大型政策工具箱”，但他拒绝具体列举还有哪些可用手段。

六 | 　　不过，在特朗普发表上述言论后，目前甚至已经很难判断，他和贝森特所说的究竟是不是同一个“工具箱”。　　近期美债收益率持续上升，市场主要担忧包括美国财政赤字、不断膨胀的政府债务、高企的通胀，以及科技公司为大规模投资人工智能而掀起的发债潮。　　当前市场讨论的焦点是：如果美债收益率再次走高，贝森特还会动用哪些工具？以及如果美国财政部的“火力”存在上限，美联储是否最终会被迫出手。　　分析师表示：“财政部干预面临的根本问题是，这需要花钱。目前，财政部主要是通过减少长期债务、增加短期债务的方式为这些操作融资。但由于联邦债务总额受到债务上限约束，财政部最终还是会耗尽弹药。如果财政部耗尽火力，而收益率再次飙升，美联储可能会感到不得不出手购买这些债券。

七 | 如果这种情景发生，那么美联储主席沃什关于缩减美联储资产负债表的内部讨论，可能就完全失去现实意义。美联储非但无法退出财政领域，反而可能被进一步拖进去。

八 | ”　　财政部下一步可能采取的措施之一，是调整长期国债的发行结构。　　美国财政部最近发布的季度债务发行政策声明中，对相关措辞进行了调整，由此引发市场大量猜测：财政部官员可能考虑减少最长期限国债的拍卖规模，同时，如果未来需要增加发债，则更多集中在融资成本更低的短期和中期国债。　　法国资产管理公司Amundi全球固定收益首席投资官格雷瓜尔·佩斯克表示，美债回购虽然能够向市场释放信号，但仅靠回购并不足以扭转收益率的整体方向。　　他还表示，为了巩固美联储抗击通胀的信誉，美联储可能仍需要加息。　　高盛集团策略师也提出了类似观点。他们认为，无论财政部采取多少措施，真正能够压低美债收益率的最好办法，还是让通胀降下来。