The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-10284, in the name of Gillian Mackay, on the environmental impact of single-use vapes.
The debate will be concluded without any question being put. It is heavily subscribed, so members will have to stick to their speaking allocations. I have already spoken to those who will speak later in the debate, as they will be required to speak to a slightly tighter schedule.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes reported concerns regarding the environmental impact of single-use vapes, including in the Central Scotland region; recognises that, in the year ending January 2023, there were reportedly an estimated 543,000 vapers in Scotland, of which, 9% were under 16 and 14% were under 18 years of age; understands that most under-18 e-cigarette users prefer single-use vapes; welcomes the publication of a review that the Scottish Government commissioned Zero Waste Scotland to carry out into the environmental impact of single-use e-cigarettes; understands that, according to Zero Waste Scotland, the total emissions associated with disposable vapes in 2022 were estimated to have been up to 4,292 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), or the equivalent of around 2,100 cars on Scotland’s roads; further understands that, in the 52 weeks to early April 2023, the number of disposable vapes consumed in Scotland was estimated to be between 21 and 26 million units; understands that the weight of packaging and materials discarded as a result of single-use e-cigarette consumption in Scotland is currently between 800 and 1,000 tonnes per year; applauds the work of campaigners and organisations such as Laura Young and ASH Scotland to raise awareness of this issue; considers that the environmental and health impacts of vaping products are rising, and notes the view that action to tackle this is required from retailers, manufacturers and the Scottish Government.
12:47
I recognise the strength of feeling on the issue in the Parliament and I thank everyone who will contribute today. The fact that we are so tight on time is heartening and points to how seriously the Parliament takes the issue.
I know that work is going on in many offices across the Parliament to tackle the issue, and I thank those who attended one or both of the round tables that I have chaired. I thank campaigners such as Laura Young, the Marine Conservation Society, ASH Scotland, Asthma + Lung UK, the British Heart Foundation, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Daily Record, The Inverness Courier and the many others who have helped and contributed to the campaign so far. There is more to do and more round tables to come, and I encourage everyone to join the discussion.
I thank the Scottish Government—particularly my colleague Lorna Slater—and Zero Waste Scotland for the work that was commissioned on the environmental impact of single-use vapes, which my motion mentions. The review estimated that the total emissions that were associated with single-use vapes in 2022 were between 3,375 and 4,292 tonnes of CO2. That is the equivalent of the emissions from 2,100 cars on the road. It also showed that the weight of packaging and materials that are discarded as a result of single-use e-cigarette consumption in Scotland is between 800 and 1,000 tonnes a year. Other figures show that 1.3 million single-use vapes were thrown away every week in the United Kingdom last year, although that figure is likely to be far higher now.
This is a looming environmental catastrophe. Local authorities and waste-processing companies are concerned about the fire risk that is associated with the incorrect disposal of such devices. In addition, the devices are difficult to recycle, as they are made of mixed materials, and the lithium batteries are particularly resource intensive to make. Many discarded batteries are ending up on our beaches and in green spaces, as well as in our towns and cities. I have seen discarded batteries between cobbles in Edinburgh and at home in Falkirk. Some of our most iconic streets are being littered by the products, and the sheer number of them being thrown away is astonishing.
In the middle of a climate crisis, the last thing that we need is to have another polluting single-use product, and a ban on disposables is the minimum that we need in order to protect the planet. There are also issues with the packaging for refillable vapes, and we need to address that now to ensure that we are not merely moving the litter problem down the line.
There is an issue with illegal vapes. We do not know if they are any more environmentally damaging than others. Their composition is much more difficult to find, especially when new products come on the market. Preventing their importation by examining the current registration and licensing scheme should be a priority. We will need a four-nation approach to ensure that the importation of vapes is tracked. I will be writing to Scottish Government and United Kingdom Government ministers in the coming days to ask them to work with me on a way forward.
It is essential to consider the health, environmental, trading standards, licensing and regulation issues as a whole when we are dealing with single-use vapes. To reduce the number of vapes that are discarded, we need to help people to give up nicotine altogether; regulate, tax and license the products better; stop the supply of single-use vapes to young people; and—as I know is crucial for many members—prevent young people from being tempted to take up vaping. We need retailers to step up and do what they can to reduce the environmental and health impact of the products.
I wrote to retailers to ask them to put the products behind cover and to treat all nicotine-based products in the same way. I got very few responses. Those that I did receive said that retailers would wait to comply with whatever regulations were introduced.
We should be using our current regulation-making powers to make retailers put the products behind cover. We need to introduce plain packaging, and ensure that flavours are removed or restricted heavily, so that we do not have blue bubble gum, candyfloss or rainbow unicorn, to name a few. I expect that, in discussing flavours, we will hear the usual cries that adults enjoy colours and flavours, too. This may be coming from me—someone who loves a pick-’n’-mix or two—but I know no adult who would be influenced by the name “Rainbow Unicorn” to try a vape. However, I do know plenty of young children who would be tempted by it. Advertising and the presence of the products in television programmes and social media needs to be taken seriously, and I am grateful to the Advertising Standards Authority for—it wrote to me in the past couple of days detailing this—the action that it is already taking to address that. We need to remain vigilant, however.
We often get branded as killjoys when we try to good things in environmental and public health policy areas, and we may be seen as stopping people from doing things that they enjoy, but the issue is far too important for us to be worried about being seen in that way, and I encourage colleagues from all parties to take a bold stance on the matter. For the sake of the environment and—importantly for all of us—for the sake of the health and wellbeing of today’s children and young people, that has to be done. They should have been the generation with the lowest-ever rate of nicotine addiction. That is still absolutely achievable but only if all of us put their needs at the forefront of our minds.
12:53
I welcome this important debate, and I thank my colleague Gillian Mackay for bringing it to the chamber. The motion for the debate and Gillian Mackay’s opening speech say it all, and I will not repeat the shocking statistics contained in the motion on the devastating environmental impact that disposable vapes are having, although I will go on to say a bit more about their impact on children and young people.
I am delighted that, in its programme for government, the Scottish Government has committed to tackle the damage that is done by single-use vapes, and that it is consulting on a proposal to ban their sale. Scotland is leading the way in the UK on this hugely important issue, and it is a perfect example of our Government saying, “No. We will not allow the damage to continue in our country.” Good legislation protects people and the environment, and I am proud that we are leading the way.
The harm that disposable vapes do to our parks, rivers and beaches is incredibly serious. Millions of vapes are littered every year, causing significant and increasing litter clear-up and waste management costs for local authorities. Those vapes contain copper wires and lithium batteries, which are incredibly dangerous to children and animals, and are hugely difficult to dispose of responsibly. It is my understanding that 29 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, including East Dunbartonshire Council in my constituency, have passed motions supporting a ban.
The surge in vaping by young people, as highlighted by leading health charities such as ASH Scotland and Asthma + Lung UK, is also incredibly concerning and, as Gillian Mackay said, is driven by the popularity of cheap, sweet-flavoured, brightly coloured disposable vapes. Just as alcopops once did, those vapes hook children into a world of addiction. In a previous debate on the topic, I highlighted the supposedly cool online merchandise aimed at kids, which allows them to vape undetected by parents or teachers. Make no mistake: this is an insidious industry. As ASH Scotland has pointed out, most vapes include nicotine, which is highly addictive, and toxic e-liquids that have not been safety tested for inhalation and threaten to damage growing lungs.
The number of primary school children who are vaping has reached epidemic levels, which is a major public health concern. A single disposable vape can last for 600 puffs, which is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes. According to Zero Waste Scotland, the lithium batteries used in the most popular disposable vapes could be recharged up to 500 times, if design allowed.
Single-use vapes cause immense danger to the environment. Let us be clear: they were never a good thing and are produced only to make profits for large companies. An investigation by the Daily Record revealed that a school fire in the Borders just before the start of this year’s summer holidays was blamed on the lithium battery of a vape shorting inside a metal bin in a stairwell. The Daily Record has been at the forefront of calls for a ban on single-use vapes, highlighting the health concerns, and I commend it for that. Campaigner Laura Young, known as the vape crusader, told the newspaper:
“Teachers have a hard enough job to do without being on monitoring duties making sure kids don’t have vapes.”
Last month, a survey showed that four out of five Scots back the outlawing of disposable vapes. The YouGov poll found that 77 per cent of Scottish adults either strongly or somewhat support a ban on the products. Figures for the UK as a whole are identical. Earlier this year, Keep Scotland Beautiful called on all Scottish retailers to voluntarily stop displaying single-use vapes, following in the footsteps of Waitrose, which has taken them off its shelves.
Let us get rid of these products, which do nothing but harm to Scotland’s people and environment.
12:57
I am pleased to contribute to the debate. I congratulate Gillian Mackay on securing the debate and acknowledge her work in this area.
Many members here in the chamber know that I am happy to work alongside my colleague Emma Harper as co-convener of the cross-party group on lung health, and it is my privilege to continue my role as the parliamentary smoking cessation champion for Asthma + Lung UK.
Vapes, especially single-use disposable vapes, are a ticking time bomb and one of the biggest challenges that we face, which is in no small part due to the age and demographic of those who manufacturers are unashamedly and scandalously targeting.
As Gillian Mackay’s motion recognises,
“in the year ending January 2023, there were ... an estimated 543,000 vapers in Scotland, of which, 9% were under 16 and 14% were under 18”.
Those figures will only get worse unless something dramatic is done.
In the past few months, the Local Government Association in England reported that, for the first time, its members have called for single-use vapes to be banned on environmental and health grounds. The LGA also points out that single-use vapes are designed as a unit and that their batteries cannot be separated from the plastic, making it almost impossible to recycle them without special treatment. The lithium batteries inside the plastic cases can increase sharply in temperature, as we have already heard, becoming flammable, which is a major concern. They cost the taxpayer millions of pounds in damage to equipment and for the specialist treatment that is needed to deal with hazardous waste.
Research by the non-profit organisation, Material Focus, has shown that up to 5 million single-use vape units are being thrown away in the United Kingdom every year. That is more than four times the figure for 2022. It amounts to eight vapes a second being discarded, with the lithium in the products being enough to create around 5,000 electric car batteries a year. Those are frightening statistics.
I also echo the extreme concerns of groups such as the Scotland wing of Asthma + Lung UK and ASH Scotland, as well as parents, carers and teachers regarding the impact that vaping is having on children and young people. We know from the reports that we have seen and the campaigns that are being conducted how harmful it is becoming.
The phenomenon is deeply worrying, and it is being primarily targeted at young people and children. It appears to be fashionable at the moment and the display of that behaviour is encouraging peer groups to think that vaping is good and cool when it is anything but. We need to manage that situation and challenge it.
Anti-smoking groups and charities, as well as medical professionals, are now especially concerned about vaping. The designs and flavours of products, particularly those with fruity, bubble gum or ice flavours, appear to attract children. Those flavours and how the products are packaged are an attempt to encourage young people to vape. They are often sold at checkouts, which is similar to what happened with sweets and confectionery, and retailers will have to take a strong view on that. Strict new measures to regulate the display and marketing of vapes, such as those that are in place to deal with tobacco, are needed now.
13:01
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—
You need to conclude, Ms Villalba.
Okay. Twenty-six councils now support a ban, along with a range of organisations, so—
I must ask you to stop, Ms Villalba. I indicated at the beginning of the debate that I would rigorously enforce the time limits to give everyone a chance to speak.
13:06
I, too, congratulate Gillian Mackay on securing debating time on this vital matter.
Just after the debate began, I received an answer to a written question in which I asked the Scottish Government whether it intended to increase the fines for retailers that sell to under-18s, as has been proposed by the UK Vaping Industry Association. The answer from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto, was no. I hope that the Scottish Government will reconsider that.
By 2021, the number of Scots who smoked had dropped to 11 per cent following legislative changes, including the banning of smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces and the banning of the sale of packs of 10 cigarettes and menthol cigarettes, but there is still a huge issue in many communities, given that 32 per cent of adults in our poorest income quintile smoke, whereas only 6 per cent in the most prosperous quintile do. It is now evident that one nicotine addiction has been replaced by another.
When they entered the market, vapes were said to deliver nicotine while avoiding many of the harmful ingredients in cigarettes, yet scientists are still unclear about the extent of the damage that vapes cause, particularly to children and young adults.
Will the member take an intervention?
Sadly, I will not. I would love to but, unfortunately, I have only four minutes.
Given that it is estimated that 76,000 under-18s in Scotland vape and that they use primarily single-use vapes, it is evident that those colourful, fruit-flavoured, cheap devices are no longer only a means of quitting smoking. For as long as we allow single-use vapes to be sold in shops where they are placed next to sweets and often put on special offer, we will encourage younger people to damage their health.
I welcome recent reports that the UK Government will also explore the banning of single-use vapes following consultation on youth vaping. However, last week, it was reported that the Tories accepted a £350,000 donation from Sandeep Singh Chadha, director of Supreme 8 Ltd, a UK-based company that distributes Elf Bars, which are vapes that are regularly found littered around Scotland. Elf Bar flavours include watermelon, bubble gum and cotton candy ice, which are unequivocally aimed at enticing children and young people.
The UK Government’s official briefing on banning free vape samples being distributed to children endorsed Juul Labs, claiming that the company was a leader in combating youth vaping. That same company has received the most complaints of any vape-producing company for fuelling an epidemic of youth vaping in the US, where it agreed to pay out more than $1 billion to settle claims that it unlawfully promoted products to children. That is highly concerning, and it suggests that the UK Government’s policy on youth vaping could be determined by the interests of the industry, rather than on the basis of the evidence.
We know that tobacco companies profit from industry-induced nicotine addiction and that they attract people as young as possible. The UK cigarette market is the largest in western Europe—in 2021, it was worth £2.6 billion. Given that the UK’s five top-selling tobacco companies held more than a third of shares in the global e-cigarette market as of 2021, it is clear that the so-called health benefits of vaping are not the driver for further increasing sales.
The World Health Organization has described tobacco industry interests as
“fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed to the aims of public health”.
Those same companies are currently dictating the vaping market that tens of thousands of children and young people buy into. The earlier children and young adults become addicted to nicotine, the higher the likelihood that they will continue to buy vapes for the rest of their lives or switch to cigarettes.
Ten per cent of young vape users admit to throwing the devices on the ground after use, as Laura Young’s campaign to ban disposable vapes highlighted through regular litter picks. I am taking part in a litter pick on a beach on Monday, so no doubt I will find some, too.
Almost half of young vapers said that the packaging does not provide any disposal information such as where to send used batteries. In the past year, 13 million disposable vapes were incorrectly disposed of in Scotland, including 2.6 million that were littered.
Given that e-cigarette companies are not taking responsibility for the health impacts of the waste pollution that they cause, it is essential that the Scottish Government acts to ban the devices, which harm the environment and the wellbeing of Scots. With several other European countries considering bans, Scotland taking steps to stop the sale of single-use vapes is a significant opportunity—
You need to conclude, Mr Gibson.
—to re-establish ourselves as a leading public health nation. I support the motion.
13:10
I join members in thanking Gillian Mackay for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is an issue that I have spoken about before, and it is one of real concern.
It does not seem that long ago that vaping companies were lobbying me in meetings in my office, trying to get my support. To their surprise, I was strongly against universal access. They thought that I would support them because vapes were being marketed as a tool to quit smoking. Indeed, that is the one area in which I support their use, particularly as a medical intervention recommended by a medical professional.
I well remember asking the representatives of one vaping company about who owned it. Of course, I knew that it was a tobacco company. The question that I put to them was whether they were really suggesting that tobacco companies were producing vaping products to help their customers to stop using their products, thereby putting themselves out of business. By that logic, once they had helped every smoker to quit, there would be no need for any of their products. If vapes were solely for the purpose of smoking cessation, why were there so many flavours and additives to draw in users and potential users? I informed them that I was not that gullible. Stephanie Callaghan and I attended one of those meetings together, and she saw my frustration with that particular vaping company.
One thing that concerns me is that people can go into significant high street confectionery stores and find walls of single-use vaping products. Everything that I was concerned about back when I was in those meetings has manifested and then some.
I have a daughter in secondary school, and I am shocked at the level of vaping among pupils. There is anecdotal evidence—and my daughter thinks—that as much as half the student population has tried or regularly uses vaping products. Moreover, there is a whole microindustry around students buying and selling the products in schools, which is evidenced by the quantity of products confiscated daily by campus policemen. More significantly, the number of students smoking tobacco, marijuana or worse remains high and is climbing. Vaping is a door to addiction and a step towards using more harmful products; it is not just about smoking cessation, as the marketing says.
Single-use vapes are a health hazard in and of themselves, as Gillian Mackay said, because so many of them are found on our beaches and in public spaces, and recycling lithium is incredibly difficult, especially from vapes.
I know that we are short of time, Deputy Presiding Officer, so I will be brief to try to give you some time back.
We need to regulate vapes much more effectively and keep them out of the hands of schoolchildren. The marketing budgets of tobacco firms have been used to entice entirely new customers, which will lead to the use of even more harmful products. The use of vapes is a habit, as well as a social statement. Peer pressure is a key driver; after all, it is not really smoking, is it? As to the wonderful flavour of bubble gum, for goodness’ sake—yeah, that is really aimed at adults wanting to quit. It is too easy for pupils to be drawn in, making the step to the next level of substance use a bit easier.
As a Parliament, we can surely come together. There are things that we could do and steps that we could—and have to—take to ensure that we stamp out the use of single-use vapes. I thank Gillian Mackay for giving me the opportunity to raise the issue once again.
13:14
I, too, thank Gillian Mackay for securing the debate, and I thank members from across the chamber for their contributions, which have covered many aspects of the issue.
I chair the cross-party group on accident prevention and safety awareness; I will try to limit myself to the work that we have done on those areas and I will highlight areas that have not been mentioned.
The Child Accident Prevention Trust has recently issued a warning about the fact that hospitals are reporting growing numbers of children accidentally swallowing liquid nicotine from e-cigarette refills and disposables. There is a risk of poisoning from swallowing e-cigarette liquid; the symptoms are usually mild and include nausea and vomiting, but serious poisoning can happen after swallowing larger amounts. As with medicines or cleaning products, e-cigarettes should be kept away from children and toddlers. Although no deaths have been reported in the UK, a two-year-old girl from Israel was fatally poisoned from swallowing an e-cigarette refill, which reminds us to keep nicotine products of all kinds away from children and toddlers. As Katrina Phillips from CAPT has said,
“Babies put everything in their mouths – it’s how they explore the world around them. Toddlers are intensely curious – if you leave your bag on the floor, they’ll be in there like a shot. So remember to keep harmful things like e-cigarette refills where small children can’t find them.”
That is the tip of the iceberg. As we know, disposable vapes and refillables contain lithium iron batteries. The cross-party group has returned to that issue many times because of the danger of ingestion of lithium iron batteries for babies and toddlers. Yet, we are discarding those batteries into our environment where, as Gillian Mackay has said, they can easily be picked up—these things break up when they are disposed of, so you get the plastics and the broken bits of copper, which is both an environmental issue and a serious issue for children.
The cross-party group also worked closely with the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland, which has talked about the complexity of the regulatory landscape with regard to those products. The products that are bought online often do not come from reputable production sources—I use the word “reputable” ironically, because I do not think that any of them are particularly reputable. SCOTSS has identified that products that come from the internet and are delivered directly to homes contain more nicotine than is recommended under the European Union and British standards as well as more complex chemicals, which have not been tested for human use, and in greater volumes. They are poorly designed products that are more likely to lead to the other issue that has been of concern to the cross-party group, namely zombie batteries, which have already been mentioned.
Thermal runaway can happen in any lithium battery. If people want to know how important that issue is, they should consider that people who go through an airport to go on holiday are asked whether they have any lithium iron battery products in their luggage—that is because it is too dangerous for them to go in the hold in case a thermal runaway happens during a flight. Yet, we are discarding these products in the volumes that Alexander Stewart mentioned when he quoted the report, which I was going to use, too.
There is complete consensus that we have to do something about the issue. I welcome the Scottish Government’s consulting on the ban of disposable vapes and I hope that it can lead to greater regulation of the product throughout the UK.
I am conscious that a large number of members still wish to participate in the debate. I am minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Gillian Mackay]
Motion agreed to.
With the discipline that members have shown in speaking, I should be able to protect the four minutes of the remaining members. I call Colin Smyth for up to four minutes.
13:18
I thank Gillian Mackay for introducing her motion.
The great vape debate is often, “Are e-cigarettes saving smokers or creating new addicts?” The reality is that it is probably a bit of both. We have seen a welcome decrease in smoking rates in Scotland from 28 per cent of adults in 2003 to 11 per cent in 2021, thanks to policy interventions such as the ban on smoking in public places. Given that vaping is clearly dangerous but appears less damaging than smoking, I am prepared to accept that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking tobacco and, hopefully, continue that trend.
The paediatrician who we heard from at the round table on Monday raised the concern that we are trading two health-harming products off against each other, rather than recognising the health-harming nature of vapes. Does the member agree that we need to recognise this health-harming product and treat it on its own, rather than trading it off against cigarettes?
I absolutely accept that and, as we have heard from a number of members, it is also important to note that we face a growing avalanche of children and young people who never smoke—and never had any intention of smoking—but are now choosing to vape.
As ASH Scotland highlighted in March, using the Government’s figures, regular e-cigarette use by 15-year-olds has tripled in the past five years and has more than doubled for 13-year-olds, with single-use vapes being the product choice for the vast majority of young people.
That is not surprising. As we have heard, the brightly coloured, fruit-flavoured, cheap vapes are obscenely marketed in shop displays and on social media platforms clearly and specifically to target young people. The gangsters behind many of those products are no better than the people in big tobacco firms who glamorised smoking in the 1960s and 1970s, when they knew that they were killing people.
I am frustrated that the Government has not yet listened to the long-standing calls from Asthma + Lung UK Scotland and ASH Scotland to fully enact the remaining regulations from the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 to restrict the marketing and promotion of vaping products. I hope that we see that happen soon, but we need to go further. As this debate has shown, alongside the health impact of e-cigarettes, the toxic and single-use plastic waste that is caused by disposable vapes has become a new environmental crisis.
Last week, stark figures from Material Focus showed that the number of disposable vapes thrown away in the UK has quadrupled to 5 million a week in the past year. More than 7 million are bought every week and just 17 per cent of users recycle those vapes in a shop or local recycling centre. Inspirational campaigners such as Laura Young have highlighted that people often choose to dispose of their vapes on Scotland’s streets and in our play parks. The industry has failed to show responsibility by providing proper information on its products about how and where to dispose of vapes in a safe, sustainable way and it has failed to put in place a proper network of take-back schemes.
Calling for a bit more recycling is not the answer. There are already alternatives, which also need to be better regulated, but disposable vapes are an unnecessary evil that could and should be banned. Yes—we need to get the detail right. Any laws need to be future proof, so that they can be easily adapted through regulations if new products are developed.
The upcoming Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill is an opportunity to follow the lead that Wales is showing, as well, it seems, as England this week—possibly under the current Government, but certainly under the next Labour Government.
If the Scottish Government does not include in its Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill a ban on the sale of disposable vapes, Labour MSPs will amend that bill, to try and take disposable vapes off our shelves and away from littering our streets.
13:22
Presiding Officer, thank you for doing your absolute best to make sure that we all get to make a contribution today. I also thank Gillian Mackay for bringing the debate to the chamber and I certainly back up what my colleague Brian Whittle was saying earlier.
The fact that we are so pushed for time today is a testament to how seriously we all take the environmental health impact of vaping. First, I welcome the consultation. There really is no place for single-use vapes in a zero waste Scotland, and the array of discarded shiny, coloured, used vapes that are scattered everywhere is a hot topic at the moment when I am out and about dog walking.
The meteoric rise in vaping among young people has rocked all of us, and the Scottish Youth Parliament report “Single Use, Many Voices”, which was released earlier this month, highlights that 84 per cent of young respondents have seen no information on where and how to dispose of single-use vapes. We must take that seriously. It is our responsibility to provide good information on disposal by using the same platforms that the tobacco industry uses to glamorise vaping, which young people use every day.
We have heard plenty about the health and wellbeing impacts of vaping and none of us wants to imagine how that could affect families across Scotland in the future. Let us make no mistake—the tobacco industry will continue to promote misinformation and sell vaping as a positive lifestyle choice to young people, so we need to help them fight back, and that will be the focus of my speech today.
I recently spoke to a young constituent, in her early 20s, who talked of the shock that she felt when she realised the high levels of nicotine and the range of chemicals that are in e-liquids. She told me that pubs and clubs are full of young people openly vaping, and that they believe that social vaping on weekends is pretty much harmless, that vapes merely contain water vapour and that using them has no real consequences. Since finding out the facts, she has stopped vaping completely. She is now aware that high nicotine intake impacts brain development and that her age group has an increased vulnerability to nicotine addiction. She rightly sees herself and her friends as victims of a targeted marketing campaign. Trust me, she is really angry and is setting all her friends straight on what she sees as the dangers.
As my young constituent demonstrates, arming our young people with the facts is the biggest weapon that we have in the fight against tobacco industry propaganda. Unfortunately, the large sums that big tobacco spends on influencing social perceptions often work. The report that I mentioned tells us that young people’s vaping consumption makes them feel anxious and trapped, which is incredibly sad. Frankly, it is devastating to think that what we once used as a smoking cessation tool has been used to peddle a lifestyle con.
I could say much more about the amazing work that is being done across my constituency by Public Health Lanarkshire and organisations such as Landed, which has worked tirelessly to educate and inform people over the past six years. However, I am aware that we are very short of time today, so I finish with this. We already know enough to take action on vaping. We must not delay. We must use the legislation that we have. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the 1950s, when emerging dangers around smoking first arose. Let us act now.
13:26
I join others in thanking Gillian Mackay for her leadership on the issue inside and outside of Parliament. She has worked with tireless campaigners such as Laura Young and the many health and environmental groups and organisations that back the call for a ban on disposable vapes.
Whenever change is proposed in this Parliament, particularly on increased regulation, we often get calls of “Catastrophe!” from whatever vested interest is resistant to the change. However, what is really striking about the call to restrict vapes is that there is not much of a debate at all; there is a lot of unanimity on the issue. I am the 10th speaker in the debate, and every speech so far has backed the call for a ban on disposable vapes. I am sure that that point will not be lost on the minister in closing the debate.
That unanimity is all the more remarkable because there has been a huge lobbying effort from the vaping industry over the past five years in this Parliament. Brian Whittle talked about his experiences of how that has played out, and I, too, went through several years of seeing constant requests in my inbox from public relations firms fronting up vaping companies that wanted to meet me.
It is probably because vape products are so uniquely problematic that we have that unanimity of concern. That is why 29 out of the 32 local authorities across Scotland have passed motions calling for vapes to be banned or controlled. If you wanted to sit down and design a cheap disposable product that litters the countryside with plastics, electronics and batteries, causes a fire risk, cannot be recycled or reused and puts young people at risk of bronchitis, breathing problems and nicotine addiction, it would be the perfect target for a ban, but that is exactly what disposable vapes are. As lawmakers, we are still catching up with the reality of that.
It is clear that communities are seeing the impact everywhere—for example, Fife Street Champions picked up 664 disposable vapes in one month this spring. A Keep Scotland Beautiful survey shows that 44 per cent of people see disposable vapes littering their communities far more often. I am sure that many of the coastal communities that will be involved in the Marine Conservation Society beach cleans in the next week will see increasing numbers of vapes on their beaches.
All that builds up to the staggering national picture that we have heard about in the debate. Zero Waste Scotland estimate that 2.7 million vapes were littered in Scotland last year alone. That is hardly surprising, given that there has been an 18-fold increase in the use of disposable vapes from one year to the next.
The health impacts on young people are truly concerning, precisely because we do not know what kind of ticking time bomb exists here—a point that was made very well by Rona Mackay. This is yet another example of why following the precautionary principle is so important. Corporate interests should not be allowed to mess around with the unknown long-term health of our children, just because there is a big short-term market opportunity.
I again thank Gillian Mackay for leading this debate, and I certainly look forward to the minister’s response on what the next steps in banning vapes in Scotland and across the rest of the UK will be.
13:30
I, too, congratulate my colleague Gillian Mackay on securing what is obviously a hugely important debate, given the number of MSPs who are speaking in it.
I also thank Asthma + Lung UK Scotland, the British Lung Foundation and ASH Scotland for their engagement and very helpful briefings ahead of the debate.
I also need to give a shout out to a couple of people in the youth work department of Dumfries and Galloway Council—Kelly Ross and Mark Molloy. We have met and are starting to work together to highlight and tackle vaping among our young people across Dumfries and Galloway.
As co-convener of the cross-party group on lung health and a registered nurse, I am really interested in the impact of vaping on lung health, especially in the light of the very serious health concerns that medical experts have expressed, but I am also interested in the issue that is raised in Gillian Mackay’s motion—the environmental impact of single-use vapes and the safety of the devices.
I know that we are a bit challenged for time today, so I will just pick up on a couple of points. The materials that are used in disposable vapes make them a potential hazard to humans, wildlife and the environment when they are thrown away, and the lithium that is used for the batteries is a precious metal of which we are already facing a global shortage. In the past year in the UK, more than 10 tonnes of lithium has been thrown out with disposable vapes—enough to make batteries for 1,200 electric cars. If we are to address the climate emergency and enable a green transition, we need to make the best use of scarce materials such as lithium. If disposable vapes were rechargeable, for example, they could be reused up to 300 times, which would drastically reduce the number of vapes that end up in landfill every day.
Vaping can reduce lung function, due to gas-exchange disturbance and inflammation of tissue. In my career as a nurse in the operating room, I have worked laparoscopically on people’s lungs, and I have seen directly the lung damage that is caused by cigarette smoking. We are, however, now starting to see e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury—or EVALI. A public health investigation in Illinois and Wisconsin in the United States found that the median age of patients suffering from EVALI was 21—21 years old, Presiding Officer. Despite what the industry might say, nicotine has a detrimental health effect, adolescents are more vulnerable to nicotine dependency than adults are and chronic nicotine exposure can impact on brain development.
At Gillian Mackay’s round-table event on Monday, we heard from Dr Jonathan Coutts, who also presented at a lung health cross-party group meeting that my colleague Alexander Stewart and I attended a few months ago. He presented the facts on the harm that vaping does to young people’s brains. We know that it has an impact on brain development; it can contribute to cognitive and attention-deficit conditions and worsen mood disorders, including depression and suicidal thoughts.
It is a huge issue and it is clear that something needs to be done. For example, one of the statistics that I found is that using one vape is like smoking 52 cigarettes, so clearly we need to be concerned about the matter.
I would like to know from the minister whether the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 will need to be considered if we are proposing changes to regulation, and I would be interested to find out whether there will need to be some kind of exclusion from that act to allow regulations to be taken forward.
In closing—
You need to conclude, Ms Harper.
I am on my last sentence, Presiding Officer. I was just going to thank Gillian Mackay again.
Carol Mochan is the last speaker in the open debate. You have up to four minutes, Ms Mochan.
13:34
As others have done, I take the opportunity to thank Gillian Mackay for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is a really important issue, as members have mentioned.
As we have heard today, there is willingness across the chamber to make progress on a response to the issue, with purpose. I therefore hope that the Government will outline soon how it will do that, and that it will consider using some Government time for a debate on the matter so that we can have a more in-depth discussion.
It is right that we talk of the serious environmental impacts of single-use vapes. They have created a throwaway culture, which, as we have heard, is damaging our environment and our efforts to tackle the climate emergency.
I will not restate all the effects that members have put across so well so far today, as I know that time is marching towards the start of the chamber’s afternoon sitting. I will, however, use a small amount of the time that we have to talk about something that has been mentioned, including in the motion; the concerningly high rate of use among our young people. Sheila Duffy of ASH Scotland has said that single-use vapes are
“creating addiction among young people, including very young children in primary and lower secondary schools, where we haven’t seen much of an issue with tobacco.”
That is a really concerning statement.
The content of vapes is such that they are becoming addictive for people of an age at which tobacco addiction is generally unheard of. That has been exacerbated by the facts that the products are easy to access, are bright, colourful and catch the eye—as we have heard from other members—and, compared with similar products, can be cheap. That brings together the health and environmental impacts of single-use vapes.
I have been trying to ascertain the number of people presenting to hospital addiction services or other health services with complications that are linked to vaping. It has become very apparent that there might need to be some discussion between Government and the health boards to consider having a separate logging option for health concerns or complications relating to vapes, because it is really difficult to find out what the figures for that are. It would be useful for us to separate smoking from vapes, as other members have mentioned.
I know that we are tight for time, so I will conclude. It has been a very worthwhile debate, and there have been many reasonable suggestions from members of the various parties across the chamber. It is clear that we need to deal with the environmental impact. I look forward to the minister's contribution. I understand that we are having an environment debate and that she has responsibility for the environmental impacts. However—to pick up on Stephanie Callaghan’s point—I would like to know what the Government will do now and how we can work across the UK, because some commitments have been made by the UK Government. Will the minister work on a cross-portfolio basis to see whether there is something that we can do about recording the damage from and impacts of vaping and e-cigarettes, particularly in respect of single-use vapes?
13:38
I join my fellow members in congratulating Gillian Mackay on securing the debate and in thanking her for her on-going campaigning on the issue.
In the contributions to the debate we have heard about the energy that has been generated and the focus of communities and councils across Scotland on this serious matter. I am comforted that we all understand the issues well and that we all agree on the seriousness of the concerns that are being raised.
I also thank the members of the Scottish Youth Parliament who have spoken to me about single-use vapes on more than one occasion, and who really wanted to emphasise their concerns for their peers’ health and for the environment. It is a matter that concerns young people very much.
Carol Mochan, Alexander Stewart, Colin Smyth and others flagged up their concerns about young people’s health. Single-use vapes have, perhaps, become more of a pathway into smoking than a pathway out of smoking. With 5 million single-use vapes being discarded every week in the UK, it is hard to imagine that they are primarily being used by people who are trying to quit. I imagine that parents must be terrified that their children are becoming the next generation that will be addicted to nicotine.
Carol Mochan made a good point on data collection. Members should, please, be assured that I am working closely with the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health on the matter, so it is absolutely a cross-portfolio matter.
On the environmental side, Rona Mackay made good points about litter, and Emma Harper highlighted the waste of valuable lithium, which we know is so important for the transition to net zero, but is also potentially so dangerous if it is discarded irresponsibly. Last week, I met managers of waste facilities who made an emotional plea about the safety of their workers. Batteries have been implicated in 700 fires in bin lorries and recycling centres in the UK, which poses a serious danger to workers in the industry. The plea from those managers was that we take urgent action to protect workers’ safety.
Mercedes Villalba made excellent points about the litter on our streets. I see in my streets the same thing as Mercedes has observed in Dundee. Retailers are obliged to provide facilities for people who buy the vapes to return them to those retailers, or they must pay into a fund to provide recycling facilities for them. It is clear that retailers are not doing that—that work is not being undertaken—so, in addition to considering a consultation on a ban, we must look urgently at enforcement of the rules. Retailers need to be responsible and to ensure that vaping products are not ending up in the hands of children, and they need to ensure that they are meeting their obligations to provide adequate recycling.
Many members have highlighted the difficulty of recycling the materials when there is a battery embedded in a single-use plastic product. Single-use electronics are even worse than single-use plastics. We are too far along in the climate emergency to have new single-use plastic products. We have been working very hard to remove single-use plastics; many industries are working to do that, so this industry’s having created a whole new single-use plastic product, the numbers of which have tripled over the past couple of years, with serious environmental and human health issues, is a great concern to us.
I thank Stephanie Callaghan, Brian Whittle and Kenneth Gibson for highlighting the nature of some of the companies that are involved in the marketing, and the danger that the products pose to our children by those companies putting profits ahead of human and environmental health.
I want to reassure members that we are taking serious action on the matter. On Colin Smyth’s comments about the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, the bill is not actually required for us to take action on the matter; we already have the powers. We are looking at a range of options, but under our existing powers we can ban problematic single-use products if there is sufficient evidence of environmental harm. The enormous growth of single-use vaping products in recent years absolutely provides that evidence, so we can use those powers.
As Emma Harper pointed out, implementation of the powers could come into conflict with the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. However, yesterday I had a constructive meeting with my counterparts in the Welsh and UK Governments. We have agreed to work together on our approach, up to and including a ban. All the nations of the UK have in common the agreement to work together; of course, a common approach will be the most effective.
If a ban is where we are heading, it will take some time to work towards that, so we need in the meantime—as members have highlighted—to take other actions on enforcement, product design and marketing. I will be working with my counterparts in the other nations of the UK on that matter.
It occurs to me that, if we get to where we want to be with a ban, we will have a problem with children who are already addicted to nicotine. What can we do, perhaps working with the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, to address that issue?
Minister, I can give you the time back.
I take on board that point that we potentially have a serious public health problem of young people being addicted to nicotine. Let us work together—I hope cross-party, but certainly with my ministerial colleagues—on how we can address the issue. None of us wants a new generation who are addicted to nicotine or, potentially, to see numbers of smokers increasing, having reduced them so successfully, with the human health cost that that would bring.
The Scottish Government is committed to taking the necessary action as a priority, and I am encouraged by the debate that the actions that we take forward on the matter will be widely supported by colleagues across the chamber.
Again, I thank everyone who has participated in the debate today. I look forward to working with everyone on options up to and including a ban.
Thank you, minister. That concludes the debate. I suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2 o’clock.
13:45 Meeting suspended.Air ais
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