Disposable Vapes: Environmental Impact

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a delight to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for bringing the important matter of disposable vapes to our attention, and thank other Members who have taken part in the debate. This area has probably not been covered in Parliament so far and is, as has been said, a new and growing concern for the environment. I was particularly saddened to hear the comments about disposable vapes turning up on beaches; that was backed up by the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally), who remembered the plastic nurdles that we talked about when we were both on the Environmental Audit Committee. It is terrible to think that this may be similar.

I took a puff of a disposable vape in preparation for the debate. I am not a smoker at all, and it caused a huge amount of coughing and spluttering—it was raspberry flavoured. I cannot say that it is something that I will take to, but it was important to have a look at some of them and try one.

Before I carry on and tackle the environmental issues, I will touch on the health issue so clearly outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). The Government are absolutely committed to making this country smoke-free by 2030, doing more to help adult smokers to quit and to stop people taking up this deadly addiction. We also note that most smokers want to quit, and there is a call to offer vaping as a substitute for smoking. We recognise that vaping is far less harmful than smoking and is an effective device for quitting. One of my officials, briefing me for the debate, shared his experience. He said that he had been a smoker for a lot of his life, starting as a young person, and how useful vapes actually were in transitioning off dangerous nicotine cigarettes. Our recently published “Nicotine vaping in England” report set out the most up-to-date evidence on vapes, providing an even more compelling case for supporting smokers to switch. Our message is clear: if the choice is between smoking and vaping, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, choose vaping. Obviously, if the choice is between vaping and fresh air, please choose fresh air.

The Government have two priorities for vaping, which are to maximise the opportunity to help smokers to quit while minimising the uptake by children, because the stats that we have heard on the number of children using vapes are shocking. It is the disposable ones, of course, which they are attracted by. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire mentioned the Geek Bar and Elf Bar in particular. They get hooked on those products, which do not come under our waste electrical and electronic equipment register because the companies that produce these brands have not registered as WEEE producers for this compliance year. That is definitely something that the Environment Agency is working on. I will touch more on how we are getting those who import these vapes, many of which are made in China, to pay to join our producer compliance scheme, so that they are part of the collection and recycling scheme. That very much needs attention.

While the public health impacts of vaping as an aid to quit smoking are clear, I share the concerns we have heard today about the environmental impacts of these products, especially of disposable vapes. I welcome the recent report by Material Focus because it shone an important light on some of the environmental concerns that have arisen about the improper disposal of disposable vape products.

According to that study, around 1.3 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week in the UK. We have heard quite a lot of stats, but that is pretty shocking. More than half a billion of all the different types of vapes are bought each month, by 6.4% of the population. It is a huge and growing market. A significant amount of the disposable vapes that are thrown away each week are not being recycled properly and are instead being littered or discarded with residual waste in the bin.

That waste includes a lot of single-use plastics, although there are also refillable vapes, and they contain critical resources. Lithium is one of the most valuable. That lithium is literally going to waste; the single-use vapes being thrown away contain 10 tonnes of lithium per year, the equivalent of 1,200 electric car batteries. That is a huge amount of a critical material that is being thrown away.

The findings of the Material Focus report highlight the importance of ensuring that the vaping sector, its products and those that sell them are fully compliant with the obligations set out under key pieces of waste management legislation, which my Department has responsibility for. I would like to remind Members exactly what those obligations are and what my Department is already doing to assist the vaping sector with understanding those obligations and, most importantly, to increase compliance with them.

All vapes, including disposable vapes, fall within scope of the UK’s waste electrical and electronic equipment regulations, referred to as the WEEE regulations. Although waste policy is devolved, I welcome the extremely close working on the suite of producer responsibility legislation, particularly that which covers waste electricals, between the devolved nations, including Wales, where the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), resides. DEFRA is working very closely on the issue.

The WEEE regulations require importers and manufacturers of vapes and other electrical equipment to finance the cost of collection and the proper treatment of all equipment that is disposed of via local authority household waste sites and returned to retailers and internet sellers. Producers do that via membership of approved producer compliance schemes. They must be registered with the Environment Agency in England or their partners in the devolved Administrations. I know that a number of producers of vapes are registered, but clearly a great many are not, including Geek Bar and Elf Bar, which I already mentioned.

Retailers and internet sellers of vapes also have important obligations under the WEEE regulations to take back used vapes on supply of new vapes to their customers. In addition, they must also make available information to their customers about how to recycle vapes. Smaller retailers—say, a corner shop that sells all sorts of things and just a few vapes—can opt out of the take-back obligations if they pay into a scheme that supports local authority electricals recycling. Of course, those obligations are not different from those that apply to other electrical products.

[Kirsten Oswald]

The Minister makes a number of factual points about the regulations and how they apply equally to vapes and to other types of electrical equipment, but the very nature of disposable vapes is so different from that of any other kind of electrical equipment. That is the crux: they are made to be disposable and to be thrown away. The problem is that people throw them away. I am keen to hear from the Minister what will be done, and what assessment will be made, so that we can take some action to stop the environmental harm.

[Rebecca Pow]

I get the hon. Member’s point, but I was trying to make the point that there are a lot of regulations and obligations in place, so we need to ensure that those work effectively before going on to see what more needs to be done. I will touch on that in a minute.

For example, there are also separate obligations under the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009 that are relevant to the batteries contained in vapes. Businesses selling vapes should be registered as battery producers because, as well as vapes, they are putting the batteries in the vapes on the market. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford effectively asked that we not have a ban on disposable vapes because we need to consider the health aspects of this issue. The Government do not have any immediate plans to ban disposable vapes, but we are concerned by the increasing number of these products and their improper disposal. The primary focus of this debate is the environment, and we need to work constructively with the sector to help businesses understand their obligations and bring them into compliance.

I can report today that my officials have held discussions in recent weeks with the vaping sector to ensure that the sector understands and communicates its members’ obligations in relation to the WEEE regulations, as well as their similar obligations in relation to batteries. Those discussions on regulatory matters will continue with all those working in the vaping sector, and will of course be in accordance with the UK’s commitment to article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control.

My Department has already engaged with the Environment Agency and the Office for Product Safety and Standards, which is the enforcer of the retail take-back obligation. They are putting together a programme to drive up compliance, and are looking at what more can be done. They regulate the producer obligations in England and the UK-wide distributor obligations laid down in the WEEE regulations, and we are working with them on this emerging sector. It is an emerging sector, which is one of the issues: it is growing so fast, like Topsy. I can also report that, as we meet, representatives of the WEEE producer compliance schemes are meeting and discussing what they can do as a sector to proactively encourage producers of all types of vapes to fully meet their obligations under the regulations. We will support their active engagement in any way that we can.

I hope that Members will acknowledge my Department’s efforts so far. It may be that we must continue to strive to ensure compliance with existing environmental obligations before jumping to an outright ban, or anything as dramatic as that. I can also report that we are reviewing the current producer responsibility system for waste electricals and batteries, and plan to publish consultations on both areas next year—I think that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newport West, touched on that. The WEEE regulations were developed when the vaping industry was in its infancy, so it is right that, in undertaking that review, we consider what, if any, changes are needed to that legislation to ensure that the vaping sector plays its part in properly financing the cost of the collection and treatment of the products when they become waste. More generally, the reviews are exploring ways in which we can make it easier for the public to dispose of their unwanted electrical items—including vapes—and how future regulations can better support the circular economy, which all of our waste and resources measures are driving. We have heard a lot about Scotland, but England is equally doing a great deal in this sector, so that we can have a level playing field between the businesses supplying electricals to customers via online sales and those that use more traditional sales and distribution channels. We are also considering similar measures under a parallel review of the UK’s battery regulations.

Littering was touched on; I mention it because disposal vapes are contributing to litter. They get thrown around in our beautiful countryside. Local councils are responsible for keeping their public land clear of litter and refuse, and the role of central Government is to enable and support that work. DEFRA published a litter strategy for England in April 2017, setting out how to deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering within a generation by focusing on education and awareness, improving enforcement and so forth. It goes to show that all those things are relevant to vapes as well as cigarette filters, which are the most littered item. The tobacco industry is working hard on how to reduce that. Potentially, companies that make vapes should be brought into that thinking as well.

In conclusion, there is an obvious consensus that disposable vapes—and what they may break down into—represent a genuine threat and risk to our environment. I have set out the measures that my Department is already taking to increase the vaping sector’s engagement with the existing environmental legislation. I also have signalled our intention to consider any necessary changes to the WEEE regulations in their forthcoming review to ensure that the vaping sector properly meets its obligations to finance the cost of collection and proper treatment of waste from vape products.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the environmental impact of disposable vapes.