Meeting of the Parliament 14 September 2023
I begin as other members have by congratulating Gillian Mackay on securing this members’ business debate on the environmental impacts of single-use vapes and on the work that she and her team have done to raise the issue in Parliament.
As members of the Scottish Parliament, we are in a unique position to use our platform to amplify the work of campaigners across the country. I therefore hope that everyone in today’s debate will join me in commending the efforts of environmental campaigner Laura Young for her tireless work on the issue. In fact, it was after hearing about Laura’s work that I first became involved in the issue.
Laura was kind enough to take me out on a vape walk, which was an opportunity to go out with her and walk the streets of Dundee to see whether we could find any discarded vapes, while learning more about the issue on the way. As well as giving up her time to tackle the issue and to meet and educate me, Laura encouraged local student activists to get involved. She is inspiring the next generation of environmental campaigners, so I take the opportunity today to put on the record my thanks to Laura for her perseverance and commitment. I say to her that she should keep campaigning—she is getting results.
Back in Dundee, on our vape walk, in just one hour Laura and I found 63 discarded single-use vapes in and around the university campus. Laura explained that that was not unusual, especially following a Friday or Saturday night out, so we decided to make some inquiries on campus and in the local shops that sell disposable vapes to find out what the realistic alternative to littering was. We found that there were no safe disposal points in and around the shops that were selling the products.
The best that we could hope for was that people would dispose of single-use vapes in ordinary waste bins. The problem with simply putting them in the bin is that, although it keeps them off the streets and makes the streets look nicer, it does not make the environment any cleaner because they will eventually end up in landfill or incinerators, still polluting our soil and air.
Worse still, as we have heard, there have been multiple instances of what are known as zombie batteries in vapes that have been improperly disposed of causing fires and hazards at waste processing sites, which puts the workers there at risk. That has led to calls for improved recycling facilities to help to deal with the mounting number of disposable vapes.
However, disposable vapes do not harm the environment only when they are discarded after use; they also have an impact at source. Although they will be used for just one day or night, they use scarce resources. We simply cannot afford to discard things such as the lithium in the batteries that power the vapes after just one use. That lithium could instead be used to power our transition away from fossil fuels.
Therefore, I do not believe that the answer is improved recycling or design regulations. Instead, there must be an outright ban on single-use vapes in Scotland. Since my first vape walk with Laura, support for a ban has grown. Starting with Dundee City Council in the region that I represent—