A proposal from the Environmental Services Association has been making headlines this week, and we wanted to share our honest thoughts on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an article on the BBC<\/a>, the ESA, representing the UK’s waste industry, is calling for a deposit of up to \u00a35 to be charged on vapes at point of sale, refunded when customers return their device for proper disposal. Biffa, the UK’s largest waste company, has put the \u00a35 figure on the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The argument behind it is straightforward: a year on from the disposable vape ban, the waste industry is still seeing hundreds of thousands of vapes arriving at facilities hidden in general rubbish every week, causing fires and sending valuable materials straight to landfill rather than recycling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We understand where that frustration comes from. The scale of the problem is real. Weekly vape disposal figures have fallen since the ban came in, but only from around 8.2 million per week to about six million, according to the BBC. That’s still an enormous number, and the fire risk to bin lorries and waste processing plants is not something anyone in this industry should be dismissive about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a deposit scheme might not be the right lever to pull here, and Marcus Saxton, our CEO and Chairman of the Independent British Vape Trade Association<\/a>, has been direct about why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n