The disposable vaping ban is here. Since Sunday, you can no longer buy disposable vapes in shops. To be sold legally, a vape must be both rechargeable and refillable — one or the other is not enough.
If you popped into any London corner shop last week, it was unclear whether it’s really happening. While the old-style vapes have been sold off at a discount for weeks, there are still shelves stacked high with the rainbow boxes of puffable nicotine.
One store owner kindly took me through the new models, and it seems the vape designers have managed to keep ahead of the law with what you could call, updates. Some of the models are genuinely rechargeable and refillable — with pods of nic salts that can be swapped in and out with relative ease.
But others seem to be simply the old model with an added charging port. They’re supposedly refillable too, but it was difficult to see how. When I purchased one to test, the charging port definitely worked, but attempting to take it apart to refill it seemed nigh on impossible and there weren’t any obvious diagrams or instructions on how to do so enclosed with it.
There also weren’t refill pods readily on sale alongside those models. A quick look on the brand’s online store showed each item now has a green banner advertising them as “compliant”.
Could this be an exploitable loophole? Selling vapes that are technically rechargeable and refillable, but with little incentive for users to change their behaviour when they can simply buy another rather than faff about taking them apart.
From a health perspective, it’s worrying that an almost empty vape could be re-charged, allowing for the potential inhalation of burned and potentially toxic chemicals as the heating element continues to work. It could also increase the fire risk if the battery is heating the coil with no liquid to burn.
Vapes still being this easily accessible will also undermine the efforts of people attempting who have been encouraged by the disposable vape ban. The temptation is still there, and it will be easy for people to fall off the wagon.
Then there’s the environmental cost, which was a big reason the Government introduced the ban in the first place. There has been no significant roll out of increased recycling points for disposable vapes, despite these updated vapes being eminently disposable.
Small recycling bins in local supermarkets are often overflowing with discarded vapes, while local tips are usually the only place equipped to handle more than one or two vape disposals at a time. But the ban, such as it is, is unlikely to make this issue go away if people are still buying vapes — even if they are refillable, batteries don’t last forever.
Plus, when they’re still being sold at the till and in eye-catching packaging and sweet flavours, young people will still be encouraged to try them.
To get on top of the vaping situation, the Government will need to mirror its legislation on cigarettes. Standardised packaging was voted for in 2015, but it took two years to make it to the shelves. Now packets of pre-rolled and loose tobacco are all in un-branded packaging covered in ugly health warnings, hidden away behind shutters.
In January, the British Medical Association called for “all vape packaging to be standardised and all imagery, branding and bright colours to be prohibited”. West Streeting has previously promised the Government will get the “powers to regulate the flavours, packaging and display of vapes”.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-2025 contains the potential for the Government to legislate over vape packaging. While it passed its third reading in the House of Commons in March, it’s still waiting to be approved by the House of Lords.
Until it passes, colourful vapes that are technically not disposable will likely be sold in every corner shop in London.
To borrow a turn of phrase from Keir Starmer: “I for one welcome the disposable vape van, but I would encourage it to go further — and faster.”
