Vape Safety and Recycling

Introduction

Vape safety and recycling: Over 6 million vapes and pods are discarded every week in the UK, an alarming figure that highlights a continuing crisis. It underscores the urgent need for improved awareness of vape safety and recycling. The good news is that last month (March 2026), the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) launched a new awareness campaign focused on safe vapes usage and disposal. Aimed primarily at younger people, the campaign sets out practical guidance on how to charge, store and recycle vapes responsibly.

What’s the background to vape safety and recycling? Progress is being made to address vapes and e-cigarettes as an e-waste problem. The UK Government banned single-use vapes on 1 June 2025, aiming to tackle the mountain of vape waste generated by a throwaway culture. However, the implementation of this ban has not entirely kept pace with its intention. While the sale of new disposables has ceased, vape retailers are still legally required to accept returns of those purchased before the ban, creating a complex transitional period.

More pressingly, a disposable mindset still exists among consumers. Many users now seem to be treating reusable and rechargeable vape formats in the same way they treated single-use ones: by using a few times and then discarding them in general household waste.

Why this vape safety campaign matters

The Office for Product Safety and Standards campaign targets the behaviours that cause the most harm. Improper charging, damaged batteries and vapes thrown into general waste bins are all contributing to a serious and growing fire risk across the UK's waste infrastructure.

Because vapes run on lithium-ion batteries, any device that gets crushed or punctured in a bin lorry or at a recycling facility can ignite. The results can be devastating. Veolia, one of the UK's largest waste management companies, reported roughly one fire a day across its vehicles and facilities, with hidden lithium-ion batteries the likely cause. Biffa, meanwhile, reported receiving  more than 200,000 incorrectly recycled vapes in its mixed collections every month.

The financial cost of lithium battery fires in the UK is now estimated at more than £1 billion a year. That's a systemic problem with real consequences for workers, communities and the environment.

The OPSS campaign encourages people to adopt a handful of simple habits:

• Store your used vape safely until you can recycle it
• Remove the battery if possible before disposal
• Don't bin it in general waste or household recycling
• Ask vape retailers about take-back schemes
• Drop it in a vape-only recycling bin at a vape shop, supermarket or recycling point
• Unplug your vape once it's fully charged
• Keep it away from extreme temperatures

These are straightforward messages. The challenge is getting them to land with the people who need to hear them most.

The ban helped, but the problem hasn't gone away

The UK banned the sale of single-use vapes on 1 June 2025 and the impact has been measurable. Research by Material Focus found that the number of vapes and pods discarded each week fell by 23% in 2025, alongside a 31% drop in weekly vape purchases. Further to this, purchases of standard rechargeable vapes fell by 28%, from 6.3 million a week in 2024 to 4.5 million in 2025.

However, 6.3 million discarded vapes a week is still an enormous number. And the market has shifted rather than shrunk, with the gap being filled by high-capacity "big puff" rechargeables and refill pods, which carry their own disposal challenges.

This means that more than 1 billion vapes have been thrown away over the past four years and the infrastructure to handle that volume responsibly simply hasn't kept pace.

The vape recycling awareness gap is significant

Material Focus research, conducted with Opinium, found that nearly half of vapers (47%) didn't know their devices could be recycled. That's a striking figure given that vape recycling points are available at thousands of locations across the UK, including supermarkets, vape shops and council sites.

The OPSS campaign is directly addressing this gap. By targeting younger users through social media and shareable content, it aims to shift behaviour at the point of use. The campaign hashtags, including #SmallHabitsBigDifference, #SafeVapeDisposal and #DontBinThatVape, are designed to spread the message through the channels where younger people actually spend their time.

For waste management professionals, this matters. Every vape that gets recycled correctly is one fewer potential fire risk in a bin lorry or at a sorting facility. Public awareness campaigns don't replace operational safeguards, but they do reduce the volume of problem material entering the waste stream in the first place.

What the law says about retailer obligations

The legal framework around vape recycling is already in place. All vape retailers have a legal obligation to provide safe recycling drop-off points in store and to cover the costs of doing so. Vape producers and importers are then responsible for covering the costs of recycling the collected devices.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed that it is now compulsory for all vape retailers to provide recycling bins. Rogue traders who ignore the rules face serious penalties, including unlimited fines or jail time for repeat offenders.

Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus, put it plainly: "It should be as easy to recycle a vape as it is to buy one. It is a longstanding legal obligation for all of the stores who are profiting from selling them to offer safe recycling drop-off points and cover the costs of doing that. Vape producers and importers should then cover the costs of recycling."

How ERP UK can support your business with vape recycling and any producer responsibilities

Our comprehensive solutions help vape producers and retailers navigate their obligations effectively. We offer:

• Support with understanding producer responsibility regulations to ensure your business is, and remains, compliant
• Complete management of your registration and reporting through ERP UK’s compliance schemes
• Recycling of vapes on your behalf – sufficient to meet your obligations
• Regular updates on regulatory changes and compliance requirements through our newsletters, workshops and webinars

We can provide additional support as required:

• Our Data Services team can provide additional support with data collection and calculation
• Our Operations team can arrange take-back and recycling of vape products from your sites and customers

The legal obligations are clear. The question is whether they're being met consistently across the retail sector.

What needs to happen next

The OPSS campaign is a positive development. But it sits within a broader picture that requires action at multiple levels.

Material Focus is calling for a comprehensive, widely accessible take-back solution paired with a large-scale public awareness campaign. The group wants clearer recycling instructions on vape packaging and highly visible in-store collection points. It's also pushing for in-store recycling to become a core requirement of any proposed retail licensing system under the tobacco and vapes bill currently progressing through parliament.

For waste management professionals, the priorities are practical. Facilities need to be equipped to handle the volume of vapes entering the waste stream, and staff need clear protocols for managing the fire risks they may present. The data from Scotland, where lithium battery-related fires rose from 20 in 2019 to 69 in 2025, including fires in hospitals and prisons, illustrates just how far the problem has spread beyond the recycling centre.

For retailers, compliance isn't optional. Providing a recycling drop-off point is a legal requirement, not a nice-to-have. And for producers and importers, the responsibility to fund recycling is built into the regulatory framework.

The bigger picture

Vapes are electrical items. Like any product with a plug, battery or cable, they contain materials that can be recovered and reused. Throwing them in the bin wastes those materials and creates serious hazards in the process.

The OPSS campaign is a reminder that safe vapes usage doesn't end when someone finishes a device. It extends to how the device is then stored, handled and ultimately recycled. Getting that message across to millions of users is a significant undertaking, and it will take more than a social media campaign to achieve it.

But the direction of travel is right. The ban on single-use vapes has reduced the volume of waste. The OPSS campaign is raising awareness of safe disposal. The legal obligations on retailers and producers are in place and enforcement action continues to tighten. What's needed now is consistent enforcement, better infrastructure and a continued push to make recycling the default choice for vape users rather than the exception.

ERP UK support

ERP UK supports businesses across the full range of WEEE and producer responsibility obligations, including those for vapes and e-cigarettes. If you need guidance on your compliance obligations or want to understand how a take-back programme could work for your business, get in touch with our team.

Vape Takeback Strategy blog

Read our Vape Takeback Strategy Guide here.

Contact us today

Contact ERP UK today to discuss how our specialised vape and e-cigarette compliance services can support your business through 2026's regulatory changes and beyond. Don't leave it until March. Start building your compliance advantage now.

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