Published on:
10
August 2023
The Council is backing a move to ban disposable vapes.
At a meeting on Thursday, a motion from Council Leader Ellen Forson called for the Council to support a national ban on the product which has seen a massive increase in use across the UK in recent years.
Councillors noted a December 2022 report by Keep Scotland Beautiful which identified significant public concerns around vapes being littered, leading to plastic pollution and fears that toxic chemicals could potentially leak from the discarded products.
Council leader Ellen Forson said: “Clearly, vaping involves highly-addictive nicotine which is harmful to health, and I am particularly concerned about its effect on our children and young people.
“But because these vapes are also being littered they are also having an adverse impact on our communities and the environment.
“I was pleased to bring forward this motion and was delighted to see it gain support from Council.”
Council agreed to write to the Scottish Government supporting the introduction of a nationwide ban on the sale of disposable vapes and to provide evidence to Zero Waste Scotland’s review on the impact of single use vapes.
Council will also promote the work of Trading Standards in preventing the sale of e-cigarettes and vapes to under 18s and support campaigns on the public health and environmental impacts of disposable vapes by our partners including NHS Forth Valley, ASH Scotland, and Keep Scotland Beautiful.
ASH Scotland findings show that, between January 2021 and April 2022, there was an 18-fold increase in the use of disposable and around 1.3 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week.