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NAWDO welcomes the announcement of a ban on single-use vapes. These products are extremely difficult to recycle, and disposal in refuse and recycling services increases the risk of fires in waste vehicles and facilities that cost money, cause disruption, and pose a significant hazard to people working in this sector.
However, the regulations appear to leave significant loopholes open, allowing manufacturers to make minor modifications to products so they can be recharged or refilled and thus bypass the ban on their sale. This means we could see little actual impact on the amount of these products on the market that end up being disposed of unsafely.
NAWDO urges the Government to tighten regulations on the design, manufacture, import and sale of all vapes, to reduce the ongoing risks that even supposedly reusable products will continue to pose. NAWDO would also like to see extended producer responsibility introduced as a matter of urgency, to encourage better design and to make producers responsible for the costs of managing waste arising from vapes and their refill containers.
Single-use vapes are representative of a growing culture of ‘throwaway’ electrical products, which is not only putting a strain on local authority services but also increasing the drain on natural resources. NAWDO urges the Government to review, refresh and fully implement the Waste Prevention Programme for England, and ensure there is an increase in resources and policy support for reuse and repair. The proposed enhancement to WEEE regulations also needs to be implemented as a matter of urgency, to ensure producers of all types of WEEE are made more responsible for the costs of managing the waste arising from these products.
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