Waste firm says disposable vape ban failing as more devices end up in recycling

The ban on single‑use disposable vapes introduced in June has not stopped millions of the devices being thrown away incorrectly, and the items continue to cause fires and disruption across the waste industry, a senior executive at Biffa said.

Roger Wright, the company's strategy and packaging manager, told the BBC that recycling centres were seeing more vapes than before the ban and that the number of incidents — including fires — had increased. "We're seeing more vapes in our system, causing more problems, more fires than ever before," he said.

Biffa said its recycling facilities in Suffolk, Teesside and London recorded about 200,000 vapes on average incorrectly mixed with general recycling in April and May, the two months before the ban. For the three months since the ban was implemented in June, that average was 3% higher. Biffa handles nearly a fifth of the UK's waste, and Wright estimated the wider industry could be seeing about a million vapes a month placed into general recycling.

The increase has been driven in part by manufacturers bringing to market a range of reusable devices that closely resemble the now‑banned disposables. By adding a replaceable nicotine pod and a USB charging port, manufacturers can lawfully sell some models as reusable, but Wright said many consumers are treating those devices as if they were disposables and discarding them after use.

"We still see a lot of these reusables in the bins, because people have used them as a disposable item," Wright said. He added that the rapid introduction of dozens of new product types aimed at working around the rules had made it harder to separate and process devices for specialist handling.

Vapes contain small lithium batteries that can ignite when crushed, a risk that presents itself during collection and processing. The devices have become so notorious in the industry that some workers call them "bombs in bins." Biffa said that in June alone it dealt with 60 fires caused by vapes and other small electrical items, and that such incidents make it difficult to identify precise causes once a fire has raged. The company estimates dealing with the problem costs the UK waste industry about £1 billion a year.

A spokesperson for the vape industry said the June ban had been successful and suggested any increase in discarded devices was likely linked to illegal trade. Marcus Sexton, chairman of the Independent British Vape Trade Association, said sales data showed consumers refilling and recharging devices. "So actually if Biffa's findings are true, this is about disposable products washing through the system, either through illegal traders or through the illegal black market," he said.

Government officials said the ban was intended to prevent single‑use vapes from encouraging youth nicotine use and to reduce their impact on high streets. The government has made it compulsory for retailers to provide recycling bins for vapes and said its forthcoming circular economy strategy, due later this year, will aim to increase the reuse and recycling of electrical equipment.

Wright said collection changes could improve proper disposal rates. He recommended collecting vapes and other small electrical items directly from households alongside general waste and recycling, arguing people were more likely to put items out on the kerbside than to return them to shops. Some local councils already provide curbside collection for small electricals, he said.

The ban on single‑use disposables sought to remove a product category that was widely discarded incorrectly, but the market response and persistent illegal supply have complicated that aim. Regulators and the waste industry now face the twin challenges of enforcing the ban while adapting collection and recycling systems to handle a changing range of devices and to reduce the fire risk posed by lithium batteries.