Vapes should be taxed to cover the millions it costs to dispose of them

[TreesTreesBeesBees]

Vapes. Causing fires in waste disposal. Cost millions to dispose of safely due to their fire risk.

So add tax to them to cover the costs

I hear what you say. I cannot police what people say though. However when people make claims it is important to ask for evidence to support said claims.

My thread is based on the billions in costs to deal with the results of vaping for disposal and dealing with fires after incorrect disposal. The cost needs to be bourne IMO by either the manufacturers or the users, not others.

Yes, but they'll just increase the selling prices to make it up, so effectively the same effect.

Right, but the point is that although the issue is showing up in a huge way with vapes right now, it's not really a vape problem as such, it's a battery problem.

As you quoted in a previous post:

In June alone, Biffa had to deal with 60 fires caused by vapes and other small electrical items.

The battery industry is not poor, it's several times the size of the vape industry and growing very rapidly. And ALL their Li-Ion batteries pose the same risk regardless of what devices they are powering. Why shouldn't battery manufacturers bear the cost? Why shouldn't the message be to everyone to safely recycle their batteries, regardless of what they are powering? Why not fine all the people who don't dispose of batteries responsibly instead of penalising all vapers with yet another tax hike?

A lot of people seem to feel an irresistible urge to advocate for higher taxes, tougher regulations and/or bans on vaping but these are kneejerk responses which don't consider the unintended consequences.

For example, the EU Tobacco Products Directive in 2014 (which we retain in UK regs) for the first time regulated vapes as a tobacco product, even though they contain no tobacco - just pharma grade nicotine. Who knows better how to navigate tobacco product regs than a tobacco company? The European market, which had until then been dominated by SME, was basically handed to big tobacco on a silver plate. They already had the well-equipped testing labs, loads of scientists on the payroll, all the admin procedures in place, and a lot of SME simply could not compete.

The new vape product duty is about to clobber the remaining SME harder again because to get the required legal stamp they will basically need to have a bonded warehouse. The new duty applies even to individuals mixing their own liquid at home, even if it does not contain nicotine. Of course, big tobacco already has bonded warehouses and knows its way round these kind of regs like the back of its hand. It'll be no problem for them.

The other thing the TPD did was make vaping unneccessarily faffy by banning eliquid in bottles bigger than 10ml and banning tanks that held more than 2ml. There has never been a clear explanation of how these measures would make vaping safer. If you're having to buy stupid tiny bottles all the time and refill a stupid tiny tank all the time then the idea of disposables starts to look really attractive.

The ultimate unintended consequence of ill thought out legislation is that if vaping is made too expensive, too difficult, or simply too crap then fewer smokers will make the switch. They'll carry on smoking and it will kill half to two thirds of them and harm the health of those around them.

And back on the subject of fires, did you know that smoking causes almost 300 times as many fires as vaping and is the top cause of fatal fires, responsible for over a quarter of all fire related deaths in the UK?

https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/news/2019-news/october/smoking-remains-the-top-cause-of-fatal-fires-despite-a-fall-in-the-number-of-smokers/

You make very sound arguments.

I don't know how much of the waste is batteries from vapes versus batteries from other small electrical products. I do know that vapes are sold in their millions though.

The waste disposal companies mainly pointed to vapes as the main problem

"However, it may come as very little surprise, the biggest culprits of dangerous waste fires are “zombie batteries” typically found in everyday items such as disposable vapes or other small waste electrical electronic equipment. Disposable vapes have exponentially grown in popularity over the last few years. This growth in consumption of vapes is far outpacing the know-how of disposing of them in a safe and appropriate fashion.
The Environmental Services Association (ESA) recently commissioned a national YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults which confirmed this alongside a lack of awareness on how to dispose of other dangerous flammable items. The poll found that the majority of those asked said they were not confident they knew how to safely dispose of used vape devices, compressed gas canisters (including patio gas and nitrous oxide), lighter fuel, fireworks or old petrol.
Claimed confidence levels about safe disposal methods were higher for items such as batteries, aerosols and barbeque ashes, although the poll also found that nearly a fifth of people admitted to binning batteries (19 percent) and aerosols (18 percent) at least once in the past year, while nearly 8 percent of respondents admitted to putting vape devices in their general waste bin, which was a similar figure for cigarette lighters too.
From a list of domestic flammable or explosive items, the poll findings suggest that batteries, aerosols, vapes and cigarette lighters were the most-binned by householders over the past year, despite efforts by the industry, local authorities and media to warn the public of the dangers of doing so."

Yes, smoking is more likely to cause house fires which is why they are so deadly.

They should be regulated better so this can't happen. Manufacturers forced to tackle this at production stage. Massive fines for breaching safe disposal rules. Circular economy, no disposables. They're replacing cigarettes whoch are ridiculously expensive so should be OK.

Hmm, I'd need to see the numbers. People always bang on about money spent on smoking related illnesses but the gov actually make something like 4x more than they spend due to the crazy taxes. Also, disposable vapes were banned on June or July of this year. You can't buy them anymore.

It's the lithium batteries in all vapes and other items causing the fires. There is a build up of disposal vapes unused yet and also people thrown away non disposal vapes rather than refill them. Waste disposal firms report the damage caused by fires and of course visit any airport and they need to check that no one has popped vapes in their hold luggage in case of fire risk.

I wasn't referring to illnesses but to damage caused by fires the billion it costs to get rid of vapes safely.

Yeah, the batteries are pretty wasteful. But surely cigarettes cause more fires? I've no data to back that up, it's just an assumption.

Its fires in waste disposal lorries and centres where the problem is with discarded vapes. Cigarettes aren't the cause of fires in waste disposal trucks and centres.

Agree with you OP.

As a former Biffa DMR driver I can assure you that a fair few fires have been started by people flicking fags into the hopper.

You've got a weird fixation with vapes. It'd be much more sensible to put a tax on having kids. They have a much bigger environmental impact. Gov would be raking it in!

Indeed, or just ban the pointless things. Can't bear seeing idiots walking round sucki g these things like giant babies.

I thought they already were? It's a bit cheaper than smoking but surely it would be much cheaper if they didn't tax it?

It's a LOT cheaper than smoking. I used to spend about £12 a fortnight. Pack of fags is about £20 nowadays I think.

😂 asking a question about raising tax to cover disposal of vapes is now fixation is it. Its a straightforward question. That's what AIBU threads are for. Are you new here?

I think vapes are absolutely fine for adults who want either to quit smoking or a (slightly less-the evidence is still newish-less harmful) an alternative to cigarettes.

My friend was a very heavy smoker, and switched to vaping 3 year ago and hasn't touched a cigarette since. As an alternative it works fine. But she already had a very heavy smoking habit..nobody who has never smoked should be using them.

They should never have been available to understand 18s. It massivly pisses me off that there was even an epidemic amongst teens who should never have been able to have access to them in the first place. Existing smoking laws already made it illegal, the difference is that cigarettes sold in your typical shops like supermarkets etc generally enforced the law, unfortunately a large number of independent/dodgy money laundering vape shops skirted the rules and sold to minors.

And I say this as someone who's old enough for the law for smoking to have been 16 (which I'm glad was changed to 18)

makes sense honestly. half the problem starts with people vaping indoors or in bathrooms where they’re not supposed to. schools especially deal with it nonstop. we started seeing vape detectors like the ones from Triton getting installed in restrooms, it actually cut down use a ton. less vaping = less waste = fewer fires. taxing’s fine but prevention works better.

Yep I really object to a tobacco style tax on vape juice.

I don't use disposable vapes I have a battery powered job with rechargeable batteries, they last me a few years having three pairs on rotation, and are disposed of properly as batteries should be.

Why should I pay for other peoples misuse of batteries?

I vape and I agree that the cost of waste is awful. Not that it makes much difference to non vapers but I buy refillable. There should be proper bins for them maybe made out of recycled vapes. I tend to pick any up I see out discarded publicly and put them in a bin there’s no need to litter whatever your habit.