Your instinct is right - the household bin is the wrong place, and not just on environmental grounds. Anything with a lithium cell in it counts as electrical waste, and loose cells crushed in a bin lorry are a well documented cause of fires in waste trucks and sorting facilities, so this is one of those rare cases where the responsible option and the safe option are the same thing. In the UK you have three realistic routes. Most vape shops and a growing number of supermarkets run a takeback bin on the counter for spent pods and old devices. Larger electrical retailers are obliged to take back small electricals, which covers a dead vape. And every household waste recycling centre has a small electricals point and a separate battery point. Practical bits: drain or empty the pod of any remaining liquid where you can, drop the pod and device into the same takeback bin rather than trying to separate them, and whatever you do, do not try to prise the cell out of the device yourself, because a punctured lithium cell is a genuine fire risk in your kitchen rather than a theoretical one. Collections do vary between councils, so a quick look at your own council's small electricals page is worth doing before you make a trip. On the pods specifically, if the drawer is filling up faster than you think it should be, it is worth checking you are running the right pod for your device in the first place - our XLIM pods page sets out which resistance suits which setup, and a mismatched pod gets binned a lot sooner than a well matched one.

My local shop has a bin on the counter and takes pods from any brand, not just ones they sell. Worth asking even if you did not buy the device there, most of them do not care where it came from.

Since the disposables ban there are a lot more takeback points about than there used to be. The tip near me has a proper vape bin now rather than just the battery bucket, which was not there a year ago.

Took the lot down to the shop and they took every one of them, drawer finally empty. Had no idea the bin lorry fire thing was even an issue, that is the bit that will stop me being lazy about it in future.