Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister Andrew Muir has announced a two-month delay in the single-use vape ban, now effective from June 1, 2025, aligning with UK-wide regulations.
Northern Ireland has postponed the deadline to ban single-use vapes, shifting the date for implementation to June 1, 2025. A two-month delay was announced by Environment Minister Andrew Muir, thus aligning Northern Ireland with the other parts of the UK in a bid to deal with an identical law.
“This would help businesses in various regions be clearer,” Minister Muir said. He said that, “The environmental damage due to the rise in littering and improper disposal of spent vapes and their poor recyclability is a cause of concern for me.” He further added that single-use vape waste is devastating to the environment and biodiversity and that a ban would have benefits to both the environment and public health.
The ban on single-use vapes has been approved after the UK-wide consultation showed high public support for such measures. In Northern Ireland, 90.4% of the respondents favored restrictions in the sale and supply of single-use vapes, while 84.9% were supportive of a full ban.
Such inappropriate disposal is of single-use vapes that contain plastics, nicotine salts, metals, and lithium-ion batteries, alarming all environmental organizations as those pose immense threats to wildlife as well as contribute towards degradation. Almost five million are dumped across the UK on a weekly basis, mostly found in landfill sites or on roads as litter.
Daera will join retail associations to ensure an effective transition process when the ban takes effect. Instructions for businesses are to be released by late December, along with what they should have in place for compliance and under the new rules.
This will entail criminal sanctions for non-compliance, up to two years’ imprisonment and fines. This is a coordinated approach across the UK in response to the environmental and health challenge that single-use vapes are posing, in an effort toward harmonization of regulation and enforcement.
As the June 2025 deadline draws near, businesses and consumers alike are encouraged to prepare for the changes that are coming and which will contribute to a collective effort to reduce environmental harm and promote public health.
