{"id":32008,"date":"2025-12-09T15:39:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T15:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=32008"},"modified":"2025-12-09T15:39:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T15:39:44","slug":"illegal-vapes-still-on-sale-as-fires-surge-six-months-after-uk-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/illegal-vapes-still-on-sale-as-fires-surge-six-months-after-uk-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal vapes still on sale as fires surge six months after UK ban"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Six months after the disposable vape ban, illicit products are still widely available. Waste companies are also reporting daily fires caused by discarded vapes, casting serious doubt on whether the crackdown is working.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A return visit by LBC to Nottingham found that while fewer shops are willing to sell banned devices than on day one of the new law, illicit products remain easy to find. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in June, a reporter was able to buy illegal vapes in \u201call five shops I stopped at.\u201d On revisiting the city, they discovered that \u201cI visited 14 shops across Nottingham and was still able to buy four illegal disposable vapes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That may represent a fall in availability, but the reporter concluded the devices remain \u201cwidely available.\u201d One shopkeeper who sold a \u2018Banana Ice\u2019 Crystal disposable vape said he \u201cdidn\u2019t have many left\u201d and was offering them for just \u00a33.50. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another store, an illegal vape was followed by an offer of an \u201cupgrade\u201d – \u201c4000 for \u00a34 to be precise\u201d – a device containing nicotine levels that were outlawed long before this year\u2019s ban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten of the 14 retailers visited were selling only compliant products, which must be rechargeable, refillable or allow coils or pods to be replaced. But the persistent availability of illegal stock has reignited concerns over the effectiveness of enforcement, echoing long-standing warnings from harm-reduction advocates that bans tend to displace – rather than eliminate – demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials insist enforcement is tightening<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A Government spokesperson insisted: \u201cRogue traders will face serious penalties.. Those who show a blatant disregard for the rules and reoffend face unlimited fines or jail time.\u201d Nottingham City Council said Trading Standards \u201cwill respond to any reports of illegal vape sales.. This may include the seizure of illegal products and potentially prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even where sales have stopped, a second problem is escalating: people are still discarding vapes – including refillable models intended to replace disposables – in ordinary bins, creating dangerous fire risks across the waste-management system. Instead of changing how people vape, the ban appears to have changed where, and how, the products circulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waste firms report a surge in vape-related fires<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Major operators say fires linked to thrown-away vapes are now happening at the rate of more than one a day. Suez told the BBC it had recorded \u201c339 fires across the more than 300 sites it runs this year.\u201d The cause is the lithium batteries inside vapes, which can explode when crushed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Read of Suez said \u201cvapes are still an all-too-common sight dumped on the street, in bins and at recycling centres across the country.\u201d The ban, he said, \u201cwas an important first step, but the reality is it has proved to be a sticking-plaster solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biffa reported that \u201c7,000 vapes a day\u201d are entering its facilities, and that since the ban the number of all types of vape arriving at its sites has increased. Between April and May, four of its busiest plants handled \u201c401,000 incorrectly discarded vapes.\u201d By August and September that had risen to \u201c447,000.\u201d Thirty-one fires were recorded over the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Craig Konczak of Biffa warned that \u201cconvenience culture persists – many smokers continue to discard rechargeable vapes just as quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disposables ban not shifting behaviour<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Consumers are urged to recycle vapes in store or at local recycling centres, and all UK vape retailers must offer take-back bins. But with illegal sales continuing and waste companies facing mounting fire risks, evidence is growing that the disposable-vape ban is struggling to shift the behaviours it was designed to tackle, and in some cases may be entrenching the very problems it set out to solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

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Six months after the disposable vape ban, illicit products are still widely available. Waste companies are also reporting daily fires caused by discarded vapes, casting serious doubt on whether the crackdown is working. A return visit by LBC to Nottingham found that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990005,"featured_media":32009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[183,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-32008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-harm-reduction","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32016,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32008\/revisions\/32016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32008"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=32008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}