Anish Vij
A vape shop owner has revealed just how he plans on dealing with today's landmark disposable vape ban.
From 1 June 2025, the government has banned the sale and supply of single-use vapes in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The ban on disposable vapes aims to address environmental waste concerns and to stop young people from vaping.
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Zeb has been running his Manchester Vapeman shop for eight years now, and the business owner's 'honest' opinion on the ban isn't what you'd expect.
In an interview with LADbible, Zeb said he's in favour of the ban, even though he thinks his business will most likely lose money in the short-term.
The businessman also told us exactly how much he reckons he'll lose, how his customers feel about the ban and how the alternatives work.
"A lot of wasting on batteries being thrown about, so that's why I support it [the ban], personally," he said. "Hopefully, getting kids off it will be part of the thing that'll help.
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"To be honest with you, obviously the ban is more to restrict kids, but for customers, there's a lot of alternatives now."
Zeb insists that his customers have been well briefed on the ban and started preparing for it months ago.
"No, our customers aren't [worried]. We always speak to our customers. A lot of vape shops you go into, they just sell them anything," he added.
"If you come here and spend a day here, you'll see most of our customers know us on a personal level. So we speak to them, we tell them what's happening, what's coming, what's the difference going to be."
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The vapeman says his two best disposable vape alternatives are the Vaporesso and OXVA models.
They consist of a fast-charging e-cigarette, and include refillable pods or tanks.
"So the disposables are the ones that you use one time, you can't recharge or change a pod in it," Zeb explained.
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"You just throw it away. So then you've got new ones where you just refill it. You keep the device so you don't have to throw it all away.
"Cause that's another problem, isn't it? Like a lot of waste on the floor."
He continued: "So you've got Vaporesso, it's an actual device pod system where you just fill it with your own liquid.
"I’d say that that is the main one, Vaporesso or OXVA.
"They start from £15 and go up to around £25/£30."
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Zeb reckons that the average vaper will save 'about £20/£30 a month' after giving up on disposables.
"They'll be saving money because of the pods," he said. "Pre-filled pods are a lot cheaper instead of buying the full kits every time.
"The disposables, with the new one, they'll buy the kit for £5.99 but then you'll get a pack of two pods for £5.99, so it should last them double the amount on that one pack."
Given that the Manchester Vapeman supports the disposable vape ban, he has already accepted that he will lose a lot of business.
He anticipates that his Northern Quarter shop will be at 'a 20/25 percent loss' per month, at the very least.
"We're gonna have to wait and see until after the first box," Zeb said. "You gotta work on the worst possible number."
"You know, in reality, it does help people," Zeb insists. "It does help people quit."
"So I don't see it disappearing or anything, because we've helped hundreds of people through our shop quit cigarettes, and eventually they end up quitting vaping as well.
"So they've quit smoking totally, and they’re coming to our shop, and there’s us helping them do that. So if it wasn't for vaping, maybe they'd still be smoking and carry on smoking."