Statement
For immediate release

CIWM applauds disposable vapes ban and calls for lessons to be learned

CIWM applauds the Minster for Nature, the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations, and welcomes the timely and entirely sensible commitment to ban disposable vapes as soon as practicable.

Disposable vapes are a clear example of a poorly designed product manufactured and sold with only short-term profit in mind, marketed at children and adults alike, and with little evident social or environmental responsibility shown by producers, retailers or importers.

They strengthen the case for Extended Producer Responsibility to ensure the true cost of putting huge volumes of such products on the market is placed clearly on those that do so, not (as currently) on those who have to pay for and clean up the mess created afterwards.

These non-recyclable single-use products are simply wasteful and harmful to people and planet. They create litter, degrading our streets and local environments and costing local authorities millions of pounds to clean up, they cause fires in waste streams putting industry workers’ health and safety at risk, and they waste valuable and critical raw materials such as lithium and copper due to their very poor design.

As a society we must quickly learn the lessons of such poor product design and short-term thinking, as we move towards a more circular economy and a world beyond waste.

ENDS

Press contact:
Austen Lees
T: 01923 608 360
M: 07773 813 210
E: austen@siriuscomms.co.uk