The sale of disposable vapes will be banned in England from June next year, the government has confirmed.

Ministers say the move, first announced in January by the previous government but not enacted before the general election, is intended to prevent environmental damage and protect children’s health.

Similar bans are expected to be introduced by the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Vaping industry leaders have warned it could fuel a rise in illegal sales of the products.

Disposable vapes are difficult to recycle and typically end up landfill, where their batteries can leak harmful waste like battery acid, lithium, and mercury into the environment, the government said.

Batteries thrown into household waste also cause hundreds of fires in bin lorries and waste-processing centres every year.

The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimates almost five million single-use vapes were either littered or thrown into general waste each week last year, a nearly four-fold increase on the year before.

In 2022, vapes were discarded containing a total of more than 40 tonnes of lithium, enough to power 5,000 electric vehicles, it said.

Defra’s Circular Economy Minister Mary Creagh, whose role focuses on reducing waste in the economy, said disposable vapes were “extremely wasteful and blight our towns and cities”.

“That is why we are banning single use vapes as we end this nation’s throwaway culture,” she said.

“This is the first step on the road to a circular economy, where we use resources for longer, reduce waste, accelerate the path to net-zero and create thousands of jobs across the country.”

It is already illegal to sell any vape to anyone under 18, but disposable vapes – often sold in smaller, more colourful packaging than refillable ones – are a “key driver behind the alarming rise in youth vaping”, the previous government said when it first set out its plan.

The number of people who vape without ever having smoked has also increased considerably over recent years, driven mostly by young adults.

Vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking, but it has not been around for long enough for its long-term risks to be known, according to the NHS.

Public Health Minister Andrew Gwynne said disposables had become the “product of choice for the majority of kids vaping today” and banning them would “reduce the appeal of vapes to children and keep them out of the hands of vulnerable young people”.

But John Dunne, director general of the UK Vaping Industry Association, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a ban would “fuel” illegal sales.

“We have a black market in vaping products already that the authorities can’t really keep up [with], so now this is going to be dropped right on their lap as well,” he said.

The government plans to introduce legislation to ban the sale of disposable vapes from 1 June 2025, allowing retailers time to sell their remaining stock.

The devolved governments have all announced an intention to bring in similar bans, and the UK government said it was working with them to align the dates on which the bans come into force.

The measure is separate from government plans to end smoking by banning the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after January 2009.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said on Monday a bill to enact that ban would be introduced to parliament before Christmas.

Responding to the original announcement of the ban on disposable vapes in January, the UK Vaping Industry Association said vapes had helped “millions of adults quit and stay off cigarettes” and that the plan would put children at risk by “turbocharging the black market”.