Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department (a) has made an assessment of the environmental impact of disposable vapes and (b) plans to introduce recycling schemes designed to reduce the amount of electrical waste produced by those products.

The Department has not undertaken an assessment of the environmental impact of disposable vapes in the UK.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations place obligations on producers of electrical products to finance the collection and treatment of those products when they become waste. This would include disposable vapes.

At present, consumers are able to dispose of their electrical waste at a local household recycling centre or via retailer take back channels, where these are available.

Cigarette butts are one of the most frequently littered items. In a recent survey commissioned by Defra, they accounted for 66% of the total number of litter items collected.