By Jessica Frank-Keyes
Disposable vapes are set to be banned in the UK amid a wider government crackdown on e-cigarettes.
Popular throwaway or single-use vape devices such as Elf Bar and Lost Mary products will be outlawed in a new state-led health kick, Rishi Sunak will announce on Monday morning.
He will unveil the proposed ban – understood to be via existing powers of the Environmental Protection Act – during a school visit. It is expected to come into force at the end of 2024 or the start of 2025.
It’s part of a broader move by the government to create the first smoke-free generation, with additional powers to prevent tobacco products ever being sold to those aged under 15.
The plan, as well as restricting flavours designed to appeal to children, and enforcing plain packaging rules, is expected to benefit the environment, with 5m vapes thrown away weekly.
The Prime Minister said child vaping was a “worrying trend” which risked becoming “endemic”, while vapes were “highly addictive” with “unknown” long-term health impacts.
“I have an obligation to do what I think is the right thing for our country in the long term,” he said, adding that the changes “will leave a lasting legacy by protecting our children’s health”.
Environment secretary Steve Barclay said the products were a “huge and growing stream of hard-to-recycle waste” and the ban would be a “powerful tool” to help eliminate this.
Shops must display products differently to ensure they don’t attract underage users, with almost 10 per cent of nine to 11-year-olds – tripling in three years – vaping, the government said.
New fines for shops which illegally sell vapes to children will be introduced, with trading standards officers enabled to issue ‘on the spot’ measures, in addition to the top £2,500 fine.
Enforcement agencies HMRC, Border Force and Trading Standards will get an extra £30m in funding to help tackle criminality, with an estimated £2.8bn lost yearly to illicit tobacco.
Ministers will also publish their response to the smoking and vaping consultation launched in October last year on January 29, which will outline legislation to be voted on by MPs.
Sunak, who is father to two daughters, first pledged to phase out smoking – still the UK’s biggest preventable killer – at the Conservative Party conference in October 2023.
Following the announcement New Zealand, the only other country to have legislated in this way, repealed the measures.
Gavin Graveson, from waste firm Veolia, warned that “millions of disposable vapes [are] thrown in bins where they cause weekly fires in recycling and waste trucks”.
He added: “Disposable vapes are a clear example of when products have been designed with no thought for their environmental impact… we can’t afford to allow more pollution.”
