I support the Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill 2025 because it addresses a regulatory gap that now carries real, not abstract, consequences for health, the environment and the coherence of our public health and environmental policy. Disposable vapes occupy a peculiar position in our regulatory framework. They are legal and widely available, yet they combine elements we would rarely tolerate together, namely, an addictive substance, electronic waste and a design that actively discourages responsibility for responsible disposal. Much of the debate has focused on packaging, flavours, names and marketing. Those issues have already been addressed in Irish law. Even stripped of marketing gimmicks, however, the core problem remains. A single-use vape is a short-lived delivery system for nicotine, intended to be discarded and replaced. That design choice is the issue before us. Nicotine is not benign. It alters neurodevelopment when exposure begins early, reinforces dependence pathways and produces measurable cardiovascular effects, even in young users. In clinical practice, addiction rarely begins with a dramatic moment. It develops through repetition, accessibility and normalisation. Products that remove barriers to that use accelerate that process, and disposable vapes do exactly that. While we are not certain of the long-term health impacts of vaping, we know the effects of nicotine exposure and addiction, nicotine toxicity in pregnancy and nicotine harm to brain development until about the age of 25, and we know that adolescents who use nicotine may be at increased risk for future addiction to other drugs. We know, perversely, that youths who vape are also more likely to smoke cigarettes in the future. We know the additional risks of e-cigarette aerosols, with cancer causing chemicals and heavy metals such as nickel, tin and lead and tiny particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs, with volatile organic compounds increasing risk of chronic lung disease. In the UK, a prospective longitudinal study is being carried out with 100,000 children between the ages of eight and 18 for over ten years to try to learn what is happening to their systems. That is why the evidence on youth vaping matters. Irish and European data show high levels of experimentation among teenagers, and a significant proportion of teenagers are current users. That tells us something important, namely, that this is not confined to a small high-risk group. It is occurring at scale. While there is ongoing debate about vaping as a harm reduction tool for established smokers, there is no clinical or public health rationale for a product format that lowers the threshold for nicotine initiation as far as possible. This Bill draws that distinction carefully. It does not attempt to relitigate every aspect of vaping policy. It does not deny that some adults use regulated vaping products to move away from tobacco. It targets a specific category that serves no essential cessation function but carries a disproportionate share of risk, especially for young people. This is proportionate regulation. There is also a broader responsibility here and it is one the public increasingly understands. Disposable vapes are electronic waste by design. They combine plastic, metal and lithium-ion batteries into a product intended for a very short lifespan. Millions of them are sold each year in Ireland. Most are not recycled. Many enter our general waste streams. Others end up in our streets and public spaces. Our litter monitoring already reflects this trend. As well as being eyesores, discarded vapes have a hugely damaging impact on our environment and wildlife. Whether littered or thrown in a bin and sent to landfill, single-use vapes also release substances, including lead and mercury, into our soil, rivers and streams. The plastics used in these products are nearly impossible for nature to completely break down. Instead, they break into tiny pieces of microplastics, which can enter our food chains. Last year, Material Focus estimated that almost five million single-use vapes were either littered or thrown away in general waste every week in the UK. That is the equivalent of eight being thrown away every second. This is an extremely wasteful use of valuable resources contained in these vapes, such as cobalt and copper. In 2022, the same group found that 40 tonnes of lithium were discarded in single-use vapes in the UK. That is the same amount used to power 5,000 electric vehicles. We can extrapolate those figures to Ireland. For the small number of single-use vapes that are sent for recycling, it is a difficult job because they contain many chemical components and they are not designed to be taken apart. They usually have to be disassembled by hand, a slow and tricky process which struggles to match the avalanche of vapes that are produced and discarded. The lithium-ion batteries in these vapes can also cause fires, which risks the safety of waste management workers, fire fighters and the public. International evidence reinforces the point. Other jurisdictions are now grappling with the scale of battery waste created by single-use vapes and the loss of critical materials that are in short supply. At a time when the State is investing heavily in electrification, energy storage and sustainable supply chains, continuing to permit a disposable electronic product of this kind is increasingly difficult to defend. The Bill does not attempt to resolve every issue associated with vaping. Rather, it focuses on one product category that introduces avoidable risk and waste into everyday use. Considered from a health and environmental perspective, it is difficult to justify leaving this issue unaddressed.

Sentiment score: -0.12