Disposables Causing A Stir
Use of disposable vape products is causing a stir on the south coast and comes as DEFRA launches a consultation on plastic pollution of the environment
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by Dave Cross
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“Vape usage is growing in Bournemouth, and so is the environmental impact,” writes Sophie Wheeldon. “Across Bournemouth, over 90 per cent of young vape users have admitted to taking up the habit over the last two years.”
“Young vape users” actually refers to under and post-graduates replying to a non-scientific poll in a Facebook group and should not be treated as a scientific fact.
Andrej Kuttruf told her that disposable vapes have become a popular option in the UK as “they take away all the headaches of normal vaping”.
“Users can just take it out of the package, use it and throw it away. We find it has become very popular with young people, but we have also found that older people benefit from them as an efficient way to quit smoking.
“We don’t want to see people taking up vaping who are non-smokers. So, we are very strict in terms of our age verification policies and many times refuse sales because we don’t want to get people, particularly young people, addicted to nicotine if they didn’t have a prior nicotine addiction.
“We always ask people about their smoking background and if they don’t have a prior smoking habit, we advise them not to start vaping because it is really designed to help smokers quit, and to switch to a far less harmful alternative.”
Currently, Evapo engage with a carbon offset scheme that involves planting a tree for every four disposables sold. This and encouraging regular customers to switch up to vape products with a reduced environmental impact.
Hannah Martin, a Business Studies student at Bournemouth University told Wheeldon that disposables are “bad news” for the environment because of the single use plastics – something many Planet of the Vapes members agree with, and the reason why POTV no longer accepts advertising for disposable ecigs.
Unfortunately, Wheeldon felt it was a good idea to link to information she garnered from a 2019 Sun article that claimed there is an “epidemic” of teen vaping, that ecigs are a gateway into smoking, and cited an “expert” who argued that Public Health England’s 95% safer figure is wrong. Annual ASH UK research shows there is no epidemic and the few teens who do vape are either smokers or ex-smokers.
For those who are concerned about the environmental impact of disposable vapes, the Department for Environmental Food & Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) has issued a call for evidence as part of its consultation process.
Question 21 asks: “What are the environmental impacts of smoking alternatives such as heated tobacco, disposable e-cigarettes, vape pods and oral nicotine pouches, including those associated with inappropriate disposal?”
Members of the public are able to complete the online questions and you do not need to answer all of them.
References:
- DEFRA Open Consultation - Call for evidence on commonly littered and problematic plastic items - https://consult.defra.gov.uk/environmental-quality/call-for-evidence-on-commonly-littered-and-problem/consultation/intro/
Photo Credit:
Photo by Sören Funk on Unsplash
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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