Adverts for Elf Bar vapes have been banned after using the phrase “recycling for a greener future” despite not being widely recyclable.
Millions of discarded vapes go to landfill. In 2022, UK users were throwing away around two disposable vapes every second.
The banned ads, which appeared on London buses and digital billboards, gave the impression recycling the vapes was easy and could be done at home.
But as vapes count as electrical equipment, they have to be recycled either at store drop-off points or at local council recycling stations.
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These “limited options” may not be widely available to consumers, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.
The watchdog concluded the ads were “misleading” because people would understand they would be able to recycle the single-use vapes easily.
The ads included images of the Elf Bar 600 V2 vape alongside the words “recycling for a greener future” and “green awareness” and the recycling symbol.
The claim “for a greener future” was “ambiguous”, the ASA said, and could be understood to mean Elf Bars were less environmentally damaging than other vapes.
The environmental impact of disposal vapes prompted the Local Government Association (LGA) to call for a ban earlier this year, while Scotland is also mulling prohibiting the product.
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AdFree Cities was one of the complainants. On X, formerly Twitter, it wrote: “Disposable vapes are a major source of plastic pollution and the vast majority are not recycled.”
It said the ads highlighted a “major legal loophole” which allows nicotine-containing vapes to be advertised outdoors and at the point of sale, while advertising elsewhere is banned.
The ASA said the ads must not appear again and told Elf Bar to make sure future ads “did not mislead as to the environmental impact or benefit of their products”.
An Elf Bar spokesperson told Sky News: “We are disappointed by any confusion this advertisement may have caused. Furthermore, we regret it has distracted from the progress of our GreenAwareness recycling project – a genuine and important effort to make it easier for adults to dispose of single-use vapes responsibly.
“As part of the ongoing programme, we have made our product easier to collect and disassemble for recycling purposes and aim to establish a closed-loop system by 2025. We are committed to these measures and complying with the guidelines set forth by the ASA.”
