Disposable vapes will be banned in the United Kingdom in 2025, in a bid to curb youth vaping and protect the environment, the government has announced.
The previous Conservative government had announced a disposables ban in January, but then lost the national election in July. On October 23, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), under the new Labour government, confirmed that people will not be able to legally purchase single-use vapes from June 1, 2025. The move applies to England, but the governments of Scotland and Wales have said they will match it.
DEFRA said that retailers should “sell any remaining stock they hold and prepare for the ban coming into force.”
“Banning disposable vapes will not only protect the environment, but importantly reduce the appeal of vapes to children and keep them out of the hands of vulnerable young people,” said Health Minister Andrew Gwynne, as the Guardian reported.
But tobacco harm reduction advocates say the government is ignoring the many adults who rely on these inexpensive, simple devices to quit and then stay off cigarettes.
For low-income communities, “vapes, and especially disposables, are a really important weapon in the battle against smoking.”
DEFRA cited a 400 percent increase in use of vapes from 2012-2023. But Clive Bates, of Counterfactual Consulting, sees this as evidence of their importance. “The market tells us they matter to consumers,” he told Filter.
“About nine times as many adults use disposables compared to adolescents,” he noted, and “most adults will be using these products as alternatives to smoking.”
Any serious public health approach should focus on the high number of adults in poorer communities who smoke cigarettes, Bates continued. “For them, vapes, and especially disposables, are a really important weapon in the battle against smoking.”
David Mackintosh, a director of the organization Knowledge-Action-Change, which works on tobacco harm reduction, similarly noted low-income populations’ high smoking rates. “We need products people can afford, and which are not complicated or fiddly,” he told Filter.
A recent survey from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) showed that more than half of Brits who quit smoking in the past five years used vapes to help them do so. ASH has previously opposed a disposables ban on the basis that it would “turbo-charge” illicit sales, which take place without consumer protections or age restrictions.
Bates agreed that he now expects “more smoking, more illicit trade, more innovative workarounds that will leave the authorities flat-footed, and finally no recycling schemes or age-secure retailing.”
The environmental impact of single-use vapes has been a consistent point of opposition to them. Libby Peake of Green Alliance, a think tank and charity, was among those welcoming the government’s ban on “extremely wasteful” disposables, calling them “the last thing our children and the planet need.”
The nonprofit Material Focus, concerned with recycling electrical goods, meanwhile estimates that 5 million single-use vapes are trashed each week in the UK, “creating a staggering amount of waste.”
If predictions of a burgeoning illicit market are correct, however, the ban won’t eliminate that problem, as Material Focus recognized, asking in a statement shared with Filter, “Who will pay for takeback and recycling of illegal vapes?” Currently, shops that sell legal vapes are required to offer facilities to take them back for recycling, although many do not.
Richard Pruen began giving disposables to friends who smoked and were unwilling to spend money on more expensive vape starter kits.
But it’s the role of accessible and affordable devices as a critical first step to leaving cigarettes behind that most concerns Richard Pruen.
Having “accidentally” quit smoking through vapes himself, Pruen wanted to help others do the same, he told Filter. So he began giving disposables to friends of his who smoked and were unwilling to spend money on more expensive vape starter kits.
A disposable represents “a small price to pay,” he said, for somebody who smokes and is not yet ready to commit to vaping. “If they find them ok, I advise them to get a refillable pod device or tank if they like.”
There’s also the issue of the public message the disposables ban will send about vaping in general.
“The government needs to be careful that they don’t fuel the disinformation out there about risk,” Mackintosh said. “Messaging matters.”
The UK has long been regarded as a tobacco harm reduction (THR) success story, with an innovative national scheme to provide free vapes to people who smoke, pro-vaping advice from health authorities, and millions of people having already switched.
But with the disposables ban, the prospect of the government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill restricting flavors, and potential for higher taxation on vapes in the autumn budget, is the country now losing that reputation?
“By international standards the UK still has a pretty good story to tell about its response to smoking, including THR, but there is room to do so much more,” Mackintosh said.
“If the UK is to achieve its 2030 ‘smoke-free’ ambition, we need to embrace the opportunities offered by THR,” he continued, “and be very clear when talking about relative risks and the benefits of swapping to safer nicotine products.”
Photograph by Beth via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0