Shop sellers in Nottingham say there is a "high demand" for disposable vapes and e-cigarettes - which have soared in popularity in the past couple of years. Only last year, hundreds of illegal vapes were seized during an operation in Nottingham.
Trading standards officers in the city bagged up the vast collection of vaping products from three separate shops. Officers were joined by the Arboretum police team - conducting an operation as part of the Business Crime Week of Action back in October last year. They seized 384 disposable vapes as part of their operation.
So, Nottinghamshire Live headed to the city centre to see how this issue was contributing to litter. Armed with rubber gloves and a plastic bag, we took a stroll around the city centre one Thursday afternoon, just to see how many disposable vapes we could find on the streets. We decided to look for any 'vape paraphernalia', which included boxes, vapes, the metal casing and the lithium batteries.
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We took on the streets around the city centre, including Clumber Street, the Nottingham Trent University City Campus, Arboretum, Maid Marian Way and Old Market Square. We then continued in Hockley, looking for any vapes, boxes, batteries or liquid used to re-charge e-cigarettes.
In less than two hours we picked up 11 vapes, one small liquid bottle and 17 empty boxes that were just thrown on the street. We also spotted two more vapes dumped near Tesco Express on Shakespeare Street.
Unfortunately, they were out of reach and we could not pick them up - however, we took photographic evidence. The most popular vape, the Elf Bar 600, is disposable and comes pre-filled with 20mg of nicotine salt liquid infused into the flavoured e-liquid.
They last for around 600 puffs per bar. These accounted for three of the 11 vapes that we found during our walk around Nottingham city centre, and three empty boxes.
Elux legends are illegal in the UK as the devices do not abide by TPD regulations. The devices contain more than 20mg/ml of nicotine and hold more than 2ml of liquid. Yet we found three of these vapes, and four empty boxes.
We took our half full plastic bag to a shop that sells vapes. Tag Singh, shop manager of the Phone Garage on Market Street in the city centre, said: "I think that as long as they are allowed to be imported into the UK, we have permission to sell them. They are better than normal cigarettes and there is high demand for vapes at the moment."
Mr Singh's store has a number of vape brands available in the shop - all of which are displayed on shelves mounted on the shop's wall, behind the counter. The cheapest vape available in his store is £4.99.
He added: "I think it would be a good idea to have a bin in the store where people can just throw them when they are done. I think that littering is bad, and it does not matter if it is a vape or something else - it is equally as bad.
"The bad thing about cigarettes is that they damage your lungs, and they are bad for the people surrounding the smoker as well. The vapes are definitely better and while you cannot stop people from vaping while it is legal, I think that having bins in shops could make a difference."
A staff worker from a different shop in the city centre, which is also selling vapes as well as cigarettes, added: "They are as popular as normal cigarettes. It appeals to young people who may choose to vape on a night out. I always check IDs. They are definitely very popular."
The worker, who wished to remain anonymous, looked at our bag and said: "It is disgusting. I sometimes spend the morning picking up boxes of the vapes outside shop. People just buy them, open them outside the store and throw them away. Sometimes we have people opening them in the shop, and they ask us if we can bin the packaging for them which is something that I am happy to do."
Not everyone is a fan of the vapes, including Mandy Whittaker, who thinks they need scrapping altogether. She added: "I think they are oblivious. You just walk on the street and suddenly there is a cloud of smoke coming from them.
"Back in the day, you could have smoked in a pub and I think that vapes are just an extent of that really. And they just smell horrible."
Tony Bird, 54, said: "I do not know where these vapes come from, but you walk into clouds of smoke around here. I do not know if they are less dangerous that cigarettes, or just as bad, but they are not pleasant."
According to reports, disposable vapes and e-liquid bottles are often culprits of plastic pollution and batteries can potentially leak chemicals into landfill if not disposed of properly. While each vape contains just 0.15g of lithium, the scale of the waste means about 10 tonnes of the metal is ending up in landfills.
Vapes can be recycled, but this experiment suggests they they are being discarded much in the same way as a cigarette would be. Here is a link showing the nearest vape recycling centre where you live.
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