Islanders must recycle vapes properly, officials say

Guernsey Waste said packaging should include how to dispose of vapes properly

Thousands of disposable vapes are thrown away instead of recycled each week in Guernsey, officials say.

Operations manager at Guernsey Waste, Sarah Robinson, said vape packaging needed to be improved so islanders knew how to dispose of them properly.

Guernsey Waste said islanders should recycle the disposable vapes at the Longue Houge Recycling Centre.

Ms Robinson said "quite a lot of people" were unaware disposable vapes held lithium batteries in them.

"When they come to the end of their life and people have finished using them, they really need to be kept out of your general waste, out of your black bags because they contain a battery and those batteries can easily catch fire... they need to be disposed of responsibly," she said.

Ms Robinson said once the vapes are sent to the recycling centre in St Sampson, they dismantle the vape by hand to remove the battery as part of a "resource intensive process".

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