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More than six million vapes and vape pods are discarded in the UK each week, despite a ban on disposable e-cigarettes.
Recycling systems are under increasing strain due to the sheer volume of vapes being thrown away, waste management companies have warned.
While there has been a 23 per cent decrease in the number of vapes disposed in 2025 compared to the previous year, research by the recycling campaign group Material Focus has shown that 6.3m are binned each week.
The study found that 47 per cent of vapers were unaware their devices could be recycled, with waste management company Biffa reporting that they receive more than 200,000 incorrectly recycled vapes each month.
Improperly binned devices can spark fires in recycling centres or lorries due to their lithium-ion batteries, which can explode when crushed. Fire services across the UK have also reported a dramatic increase in the number of incidents in recent years.
Veolia, another waste management company, said it tackled an estimated one fire a day across its facilities, while these incidents have also caused localised spikes in air pollution that have breached World Health Organisation limits.
Vapes should not be placed in regular bins, but should be recycled at specific bins that are placed in supermarkets or in designated locations.
“It should be as easy to recycle a vape as it is to buy one,” Scott Butler, the executive director of Material Focus said. “It is a longstanding legal obligation for all of the stores who are profiting from selling them to offer safe recycling drop-off points and cover the costs of doing that. Vape producers and importers should then cover the costs of recycling.”
A ban on disposable vapes came into place last summer in an attempt to reduce the sale of vapes to children and the amount of waste disposable vapes were creating.
Initially hailed as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes and a quitting aid, the health implications of vaping are now less clear over a decade later.
Recent studies indicate that vaping is linked to increased health risks, including elevated blood pressure, heart problems, and reduced lung function, even in individuals with no prior smoking history.
A significant concern is the growing nicotine addiction among young people who have never smoked, with research connecting regular vaping to mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
While e-cigarettes may assist some adults in quitting smoking, traditional nicotine replacement therapies such as patches and gum are considered more effective and better-evidenced options.
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