Vape trade bodies have decried the call by the Local Government Association (LGA) for a ban on disposable vapes by next year, saying such a ban would be discriminatory and would have negative consequences.
The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, has on Saturday, called for the government to ban the sale and manufacture of single use vapes by 2024 on environmental and health grounds.
John Dunne, director general of the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) said the move seems to be an effort by the councils to abdicate from their waste management responsibilities.
“The negative consequences of these proposals have not been thought through and this also looks like a move by the LGA to support cash-strapped councils who don’t want to invest in the local authority’s waste management capability required to support smokers transitioning to considerably less harmful vapes,” Dunne commented.
“Smokers pay their taxes for local services, one being recycling, and local government needs to think whether recycling costs are a more important consideration than helping to potentially save the lives of local people through vaping, including disposables, which has huge potential to save local hospitals across the country millions of pounds every year.”
Gillian Golden, IBVTA chief executive, said: “Prohibition rarely works, and history tells us the black market will just grow to cover the gap. We recognise the concerns of the LGA and its members. However, we believe there are better ways to tackle the issues of youth access and vape waste. We need to consider approaches that will have less dire consequences for the potential of vaping to continue driving down adult smoking rates.”
The Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA) said an outright ban on an entire category of vape products would be discriminatory.
“IBVTA members supply single-use vape products for vulnerable adults that would otherwise be smoking, often in projects that are publicly funded. Our concerns about the unintended consequences of an outright ban must also be shared by many people working in frontline local health and wellbeing services,” the trade body said in a statement.
Dunne noted that the call for a ban on disposable vapes while ignoring the much bigger problem of smoking and its related litter makes ‘absolutely no sense’. Smoking related litter accounts for 68 per cent of all litter in the UK and discarded cigarette butts alone cost local authorities £40 million a year to clean up.
With smoking killing more than 200 UK smokers every day, Dunne highlighted the potential of single use vapes in helping smokers quit.
“The low price, accessibility and ease of use of these products have played a key role in helping bring the UK smoking rate to an all-time low. A recent report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) concluded that converting smokers to vapers saved the NHS more than £320 million in a single year,” he said.
The IBVTA concurred, saying there is a more general demand by adults for vapes that are as ‘user friendly’ as cigarettes, as evidenced by just how popular they are among adult smokers who would likely never otherwise have tried vaping.
“While there are obvious issues surrounding single use ‘disposable’ vapes, they can be a very important ‘first step’ away from cigarette smoking,” the trade body said.
IBVTA also refuted the contention that disposable vapes are particularly popular with children, citing an analysis of over 600,000 IBVTA member customers that has shown that the average age of purchasers of single use products is 37 and the average age of vapers purchasing so called child targeted flavours is 36.
“These data are skewed by the strict age verification that IBVTA members carry out. However it is clear that the products are not disproportionately popular with young adults, and are actually very popular among middle-aged adults that would otherwise be smoking,” the trade body said.
Highlighting the link between those who supply illicit products and illegal sales to children, IBVTA said a ban would not deter such rogue traders.
“Local Trading Standards enforcement officers have recognised that retailers who do not take care to check that the products they stock are compliant are also less likely to check the ages of their customers. Banning single use vapes would do nothing to discourage these rogue retailers,” it said.
UKVIA’s Dunne also emphasized this point. “Experience across the world shows that where blanket bans have been introduced on regulated single use vapes, there is a massive influx of illegal, untested and potentially deadly black-market products which take their place and this is in nobody’s interest,” he said.
Both trade bodies said they are promoting measures to reduce the environmental impact of the disposable vapes.
“The vape industry is working hard to minimise environmental impact but this is mainly a consumer education issue about how to dispose of used vapes, which overall are evidenced to be highly recyclable. We need vastly more recycling points in city and town centres to make it as easy as possible for people to act responsibly,” Dunne said.
IBVTA said: “Littering of single use vapes must be discouraged, which is why the IBVTA supports our members in encouraging behaviour change of their customers. Consumers can reduce their environmental impact by moving to rechargeable, refillable products. Our members are working on providing more opportunities for consumers to dispose of their single use vapes responsibly, and to ensure the products recovered are recycled.”
Public health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) also refrained from supporting the call for a ban.
“ASH is sympathetic to calls by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and now the Local Government Association to ban single-use disposable e-cigarettes, but the risk of unintended consequences is too great for us to support a ban,” Hazel Cheeseman, ASH deputy chief executive, said.
“Children already find it easy to get hold of illegal vapes, as those selling them have no qualms selling to children, making them all illegal won’t help. The sale of illegal disposable vapes, already large and growing, will be turbo-charged if they are banned.”
