UK: 90% vaping manufacturers fail to meet environmental obligations

A study by the non-profit organization Material Focus[1] shows that nine out of ten vaping product manufacturers and retailers do not provide or support the return and recycling of single-use e-cigarettes in the UK. The organization estimates that more than 250 million devices will be improperly discarded by the time puffs are banned in 2025.

Material Focus visited more than 700 retail stores that sell e-cigarettes to find drop-off points for used products or to ask if they could recycle their e-cigarettes. While some stores claim to have take-back systems in place, most shoppers were told that the store could not take back their used products, even though they were required to do so.

Widespread non-compliance with environmental regulations in place since 2021

In the UK, any business producing significant quantities of electrical/electronic items must register, report their sales and fund the cost of recycling their products. Retailers must also ensure that their customers can easily recycle these products by providing collection points where products sold by the store are dropped off for recycling. Where businesses produce less than 5 tonnes of products per year, they must register with their environmental regulator as a small producer. For more than 5 tonnes per year, they must pay to join a Producer Compliance Scheme (PCS) which will take over the businesses’ obligations to fund the collection, treatment, recovery and disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Despite these legal obligations in force since 2021, only 86 out of 764 stores visited (11 %) have set up collection points for products to be recycled. The analysis also looked at company registers and selected 165 companies among the largest vaping producers in the UK. Only 15 of these had registered to comply with environmental regulations relating to producer responsibility for WEEE.

The analysis highlighted that not all of the companies identified had been registered with UK environmental agencies and were therefore failing to comply with various regulations requiring them to contribute to the costs of recycling the products and packaging they sell when they reach the end of their life.

Yet all of the companies identified by Material Focus’ analysis are members of a vaping industry trade association, such as the UKVIA or the IBVTA, and have also registered their products with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The need to react quickly to this problem

Sales of single-use vapes in the UK now total at least 360 million units per year, equivalent to providing lithium for the batteries of over 6,700 electric vehicles according to Material Focus. The cost of recycling all single-use vapes purchased in the UK could be as much as £200 million per year.

Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus, said it is critical that the millions of vaping devices that could be thrown away by the time the ban comes into force are collected for recycling. This requires an efficient and accessible system that manages the recycling of all vaping products, including the popular pod-based e-cigarettes, he said. One of the challenges of recycling e-cigarettes, and especially disposable devices, is the labour-intensive nature of recycling. Each product must be disassembled by hand due to flammable batteries, and nicotine liquid requires additional health and safety precautions.

At the end of 2022, Material Focus published a information document on the environmental responsibilities of vaping product producers and retailers, which has been widely circulated across the industry. Scott Butler laments that there has been so little progress since the previous survey in 2022 while sales and profits have exploded.

Keywords: UK, recycling, puff, disposable e-cigarette, vaping, environment

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[1] Material Focus, Over 90% of vape producers and retailers in the UK are still failing to meet environmental regulations, published March 21, 2024, accessed March 27, 2024