Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service on Friday (14) issued an advisory for retailers to act now in advance of the ban on disposable vapes that comes into force from June this year.
Retailers should now consider stopping buying new stocks of single use vapes and sell any existing stocks before June 1.
Warwickshire County Councillor Andy Crump, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety said,“Disposable vapes, also known as single use vapes, are a wasteful use of valuable resources.
"They are frequently discarded, instead of being properly recycled, leading to harmful substances entering the soil and water courses and causing harm to plant and wildlife”.
“Many single use vapes also end up in landfill or are incinerated, which can cause fires. I strongly urge Warwickshire retailers to read our guidance and act now.”
The council stated that from June 1, retailers must stop selling or offering for sale single use vapes (whether or not they contain nicotine), remove them from their store (including online stores) and arrange for them to be collected by a registered vape recycling service.
Retailers who fail to follow the law and continue to sell disposable vapes after the ban face having these products seized by Trading Standards and could be fined £200. Repeat offenders could be prosecuted.
Retailers can continue to sell reusable vapes.
Reusable vapes must have a battery users can recharge and be refillable with vape liquid, either by filling up the tank or cartridge with e-liquid or inserting new pre-filled pods. Refills (pods or vape liquid refill bottles) should be separately available for users to buy.
If the vape has a coil, it must be one that can be replaced by an average user, either by removing and replacing it or removing and replacing a pod or tank that contains it.
The coil (whether part of a replacement pod or tank, or not) should be separately available to buy.
Retailers will need to be able to demonstrate that an average user can separately buy individual refill items (including pods or e-liquid refill bottles) for the vaping items they stock. An easy way of doing this is by providing these items in the shop or online store.
