Superdrug will stop selling disposable vapes in all its UK and Ireland stores after concerns about the environmental damage from millions of single-use e-cigarettes.
Brands such as Vuse GO and Flavaah Bars would no longer be sold, the retailer said, adding that it would have the stock completely cleared by the end of the year. Superdrug said it sold an average of 1,300 units of single-use vapes a week in stores and did not sell them online.
The company said it had made the decision in order to protect the environment.
Lucy Morton-Channon, its head of environment, social and governance, said: “The rate that consumers are using single-use vapes and discarding them is worrying and alarming for the environment. The lasting effects that single-use vapes are having on the environment needs to be addressed, and I am pleased that we’ve decided to remove them from all stores.”
Research from the recycling campaign group Material Focus recently found 5m disposable vapes were being thrown away in the UK every week, a fourfold increase on 2022. This amounts to eight vapes a second being discarded, with the lithium in the products enough to create 5,000 electric car batteries a year.
Superdrug also cited the risk of fires caused by improper disposal of vapes because many contain lithium batteries.
Ministers are reportedly poised to ban single-use vapes amid concerns the devices are being marketed to children. Councils, paediatricians and environmental campaigners are among those who have called for the sale of disposable e-cigarettes to be outlawed.
The government said it would soon publish a response to its call for evidence on vaping by young people, which closed in June. David Fothergill, the chair of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, said the GLA was very pleased about the Superdrug ban.
He said: “Single-use vapes blight our streets as litter, are a hazard in our bin lorries, are expensive and difficult to deal with in our recycling centres. It is important that a ban is brought in at pace. Disposable vapes are an inherently unsustainable product.”
Concern has also been raised about the health risks e-cigarettes pose to the large number of teenagers taking up vaping. The latest survey for Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) found 20.5% of children had tried vaping, up from 15.8% in 2022 and 13.9% before the first Covid lockdown.
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Prof Steve Turner, registrar for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, also welcomed the Superdrug move. He said his colleagues across the country were very worried about young people vaping and the fact it was an “effective entry into nicotine addiction and smoking”.
The situation was “a public health disaster” and “children should not be becoming addicted to nicotine”, Turner added.
