Ban Disposable Vapes

ASH Scotland started raising our concerns about disposable vapes along with environmental campaigners including Marine Conservation Society (MCS) to coincide with World No Tobacco Day on 31 May 2022 and, later that year, we led the emerging Ban Disposable Vapes campaign in Scotland along with climate activist Laura Young, Keep Scotland Beautiful and MCS. Our briefing on e-cigarette waste garnered additional attention to the plight these single use products cause to the environment, while also highlighting the difficulty faced when trying to recycle them.

We called on the Scottish Government to ban disposable e-cigarettes on both environmental and public health grounds as single-use vapes are the product of choice for the majority of youngsters who vape.

We also signed a letter coordinated by the Green Alliance in November 2022 which strongly urged the UK Government to ban disposable e-cigarettes.

A breakthrough development for the campaign came when the Scottish Government commissioned Zero Waste Scotland in Spring 2023 to conduct an urgent review to understand and manage the environmental impact of the products.

The campaign was then bolstered in June 2023 when the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) added their strong voices calling for a ban. Read about the announcement of their support here.

Following the publication of the review for the Scottish Government on 30 June 2023, we continued to call for an outright ban of the products which you can read here.

It was wonderful moment on 5 September 2023 when the Programme for Government statement included an announcement that a consultation on banning the sale of disposable e-cigarettes would be carried out by the Scottish Government!

A four nations ‘Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping’ consultation, which was conducted by the UK Government, ended on 6 December 2023.

2024 started with a major boost for the campaign when, on Sunday 28 January, the Scottish Government and the UK Government announced respective plans to ban disposable vapes. Click here to read the full story about the proposals to bring in a UK-wide ban. It was announced in late February 2024 that each country would consult on bans using powers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The Scottish Government went on to lay its draft Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 on 10 June 2024.

Evidence backing our calls for disposable vapes to be banned

Read on to find out about the evidence we presented as part of our campaign influencing progress towards the introduction of a ban on disposable vapes in Scotland.

See our views which we provided to the Scottish Government’s consultation on ‘Implementing the prohibition of the sale and supply of single-use vapes in Scotland’ which took place between 2 April and 14 May 2024. The Scottish Government’s response was published on 12 June 2024 and can be read here.

Following an invitation to share our views on the Scottish Government’s draft Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, we provided this response to the Scottish Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in August 2024.

We welcomed, with this statement, the Committee’s decision on 3 September 2024 to recommend that the Scottish Government’s draft regulations be approved. On 18 September 2024, the Committee published its report on the draft regulations here.

Finally, with this statement, we welcomed the momentous unanimous vote in the Scottish Parliament on 25 September 2024 which approved the Scottish Government’s draft Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. The published regulations can be viewed here.

On behalf of all who led the #BanDisposableVapes campaign in Scotland, we thank all the young people, parents, teachers and everyone in communities across the country who committed their support.

We must also give huge credit to MSPs from every political party who listened to society’s concerns and took the positive action of bringing in the ban of these health and environmental harming products which should have no part in a circular economy.