There have been calls to ban disposable vapes for the sake of the environment. 

The popularity of e-cigarettes have surged in recent years and among young people there is evidence to suggest they are more popular than traditional tobacco.

While the HSE believes they might be healthier than old-fashioned cigarettes, there is evidence they are causing just as much litter as the traditional variety.

Speaking to Henry McKean for The Hard Shoulder, Irish Business Against Litter spokesperson Conor Horgan said  disposable vapes were increasingly “problematic”.

“If you talk to people involved in Tidy Towns, they’ll tell you vapes have become a real bugbear in that community,” he said.

“Our own data shows that year on year, the amount of vape litter on streets has doubled.

“Now it’s still not at the level of cans or plastic bottles but the thing about vapes is the litter is only half the problem.

“They’re a mixture of battery and plastic, so they don’t belong in general waste either; so, where are all the disposable vapes going?

“They belong in the blue boxes with batteries that we find in supermarkets but that just doesn’t suit an item that’s consumed daily.”

A disposable vape is seen on the ground in Glasgow, Scotland in January 2023. Picture by: gerard ferry / Alamy Stock Photo

Mr Horgan said there should be a scheme where you  take them back to a shop where they can be “disposed of correctly” into a dedicated vape disposal box.

Even better, he wants the Government to ban them entirely.

“Absolutely, they should ban them straight away, they’re just a menace for young kids,” he said.

“If anything the situation is getting worse rather than better.”

'It should be stopped altogether'

Out on Dublin’s Parnell Street, Mr Horgan’s dislike of vapes was shared by at least one of the city’s street cleaners.

“They’re everywhere all over the city, they’re desperate,” he said.

“They’re not getting disposed of correctly and there should be something done legally about it.

“It should be stopped altogether.”

The street cleaner said disposable vapes are now “much the same problem” as traditional cigarettes and disposing of them can be difficult.

“That’s no excuse to litter but you can see why these items are littered more than other items,” he said.

“Because of the practical difficulty of what do you do with them when you’ve used them?

“We don’t need them, sacrifice is needed for us to bring about this circular economy and I think one of the things that has to go is disposable vapes.”

The HSE advises that the “best thing you can do for your health is not to smoke or vape” but notes vaping “may be less harmful” than tobacco.

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Main image: Single use disposable vapes lying discarded on the road. Credit: Richard Newton / Alamy Stock Photo