‘Wasteful’ disposable vapes to be banned by next June

Disposable vape sales will be banned by next summer, the government has said, branding the e-cigarette products “wasteful”.

Fresh legislation to ban the sale of single-use vaping devices from June 2025 was introduced before Parliament on Wednesday.

The government says an estimated five million single-use vapes were littered or thrown away each week last year – almost four times as much as the previous year.

Mary Creagh, circular economy minister, said: “Single-use vapes are extremely wasteful and blight our towns and cities. 

“This is the first step on the road to a circular economy, where we use resources for longer, reduce waste, accelerate the path to net-zero and create thousands of jobs.”

Disposable vapes are not rechargeable or refillable and not typically recycled, while their lithium-ion batteries can be risky for waste workers who have to take them apart by hand, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

Over nine per cent of the British public now buy and use vapes, the department added, after a more than 400 per cent rise in usage in England between 2012 and 2023. 

But there are warnings the move could risk fuelling a “black market” in disposable vapes.

UK Vaping Industry Association director general, John Dunne, told the BBC vape users could buy products from abroad online, and that “the authorities can’t really keep up”.

Speaking to the Today programme on Radio Four, he said: “One of the major concerns, at least with the last version of the bill that I saw prior to the new government coming in, [it] didn’t include a ban on the importation of the products that they’re going to ban for sale. 

“So in my view, that’s just going to fuel a black market.”

Ministers said businesses would have until 1 June 2025 to sell any remaining stock and prepare for the ban coming into effect – subject to parliamentary approval.

It comes as the government plans to introduce the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will gradually raise the age at which tobacco products can be bought, with the aim of stopping anyone born after 2009 from ever legally smoking in a bid to create a smoke-free UK.

Health secretary Wes Streeting pledged on Monday to toughen up smoking laws and said Labour’s bill would be “more ambitious” than the Conservative version – which former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed, but ran out of time to pass prior to the election he called.