Fun* fact in this video: the 'disposable' vapes thrown away in Britain alone contain enough lithium batteries to make 1.2 Million e-bikes.
I've been independently powering things with vape batteries that I've rescued before seeing this video. Pull out the cell, add a cheap usb charging module and you have a fully rechargeable 3.7v power source. If you need higher voltage you can put them in series and you can even get multi-cell balancing modules for next to nothing if you want to have a few in parallel for more current.
I don't trust them for anything critical, but they're great for low-budget projects as the cells are completely free. My bike lights are all powered by them (one can run a flashing bike light for a couple of weeks' use), as well as various other things that had their batteries die, or that didn't come with rechargeable batteries.
I also only charge them somewhere flameproof, though I haven't had any issues so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp23hrrEHY

YouTube
Turning Disposable Vapes into a Fast Charge Power BankIn this video I use 35 disposable vape batteries to create a fast charge power bank that can even charge laptops.I am working on building an open source kit ...
There's a better video for the kind of use I put them to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiUyMLdVyfI
YouTube
Can you reuse these batteries?Disposable vapes should be prohibited. Everything that is not reusable should be and people who sell crap like that should be punished. I don't get how today, when we should be aware of the climate crisis, people are allowed to sell that crap. Sorry for the rant. These vapes are laying around on the floor a lot where live. Drives me crazy.
@l05tchild @stib I agree. But the government in its wisdom decided to regulate reusable capes out of existence instead while seemingly leaving the disposable ones unaffected