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One year on from the ban on the sale of single use vapes, fire chiefs and charity campaigners are warning that retailers are failing to provide enough recycling points leading to millions of vapes being thrown away and fuelling waste fires.
Vapes are powered by lithium-ion batteries, which if binned can get crushed or damaged and spark dangerous fires in bin lorries and waste and recycling centres. Joanne Henderson, National Fire Chiefs Council Smoking and Vape lead said: “Making vape recycling visible and convenient is critical for not only reducing waste but for helping to prevent dangerous battery fires caused by vapes being thrown out in household waste.
The NFCC has teamed up with Material Focus to shine a spotlight on the dangers and encourage greater take up of recycling by retailers.
“Every vape that is thrown into a bin, where the lithium–ion batteries can become crushed or damaged, instead of being recycled correctly has the potential to cause a serious fire,” she added. “These fires can start in household bins, or later in bin lorries and waste sites putting residents, workers and firefighters at risk.”
Material Focus, a not for profit campaigning for reductions in e-waste, has found that the lithium being discarded in vapes annually is enough to power 5,000 electric vehicle batteries, and yet 47% of vapers are still unaware the devices can even be recycled. The charity said that one disposal company, Veolia, experiences a fire a day in their vehicles and at their waste and recycling centres.
With an estimated 6.3 million vapes and pods being discarded each week, Joanne explains: “People want to do the right thing and dispose of these products safely as fire services advise them, but they need clear information and easy to access recycling points to do so. If recycling points and disposal advice were as prominent as vapes sales displays fewer devices would end up in the waste system and the number of these waste fires would be reduced.”
Material Focus is calling on retailers to step up and comply with legislation by making it easy to recycle vapes. The are advocating for clearly visible recycling drop-off points for customers and for the vape producers and retailers to provide recycling information on packaging.
More information on the campaign, check out the Vapes Toolkit from Material Focus.
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