Key Summary
Government’s disposable vape ban aimed to curb environmental harm, but a leading convenience store body has warned that it is backfiring by fueling confusion, sales loss, and booming black market.
One month into the UK government’s ban on disposable vapes, what was intended as a bold step toward environmental responsibility and tackling rise in youth vaping, Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) chief executive James Lowman feels that the ban has created more problems than solutions.
In a candid blog post reflecting on the early days of the ban, Lowman has raised serious concerns about the unintended consequences already playing out in stores across the country.
“Overall, it looks as though the first month of the ban has created more problems than solutions,” Lowman writes.
The policy was introduced to reduce environmental waste caused by discarded single-use vapes and promote the uptake of rechargeable and refillable alternatives. However, Lowman warned that customer behaviour hasn’t changed significantly.
“If customers aren't really paying attention to whether they're rechargeable or not and their previous behaviour was to throw the vape away when it ran out of puffs, it's very unlikely that they'll change course without some kind of intervention or education," he writes.
Retailers are also struggling to source refills, which undermines the core intent of the new regulation.
Lowman points out, “The feedback that we've had from retailers so far is that the pods are really difficult to get hold of, so the refillable devices that they're selling are being effectively turned into disposables because they can't find a way to use them more than once.”
Meanwhile, the illicit market appears to be thriving as rogue traders continue to supply banned disposable vapes.
"We're also not naïve to the fact that plenty of people are still finding and using disposable vapes on the illicit market. Tackling rogue traders has been a major battle in recent years and the disposables ban has given them another opportunity to appeal to people looking for cheap product.
"Responsible retailers have told us that in some areas their vape sales have taken a major hit since the introduction of the ban, so it's not unreasonable to assume that those people have either stockpiled or are finding disposables elsewhere.
"We know that Trading Standards don't have the resources to stop every criminal selling illicit product, but the Government committed more funding in the recent Spending Review for enforcement, so hopefully the numbers of rogue traders will decline sooner than later," says Lowman.
ACS chief noted the government's pledge of more enforcement funding, but said the effectiveness of that investment remains to be seen.
"We know that Trading Standards don't have the resources to stop every criminal selling illicit product, but the Government committed more funding in the recent Spending Review for enforcement, so hopefully the numbers of rogue traders will decline sooner than later," he states.