VAPRIL RULES DAY

Date revealed for the end of the single-use e-cigarettes in Scotland and the rest of the UK

- DAN VEVERS

THE ban on disposable e-cigs from April 1 next year has been hailed as a resounding victory for the Daily Record's campaign to protect our children and the environment.

Scottish ministers will publish their plans today to outlaw the litter menace, banning both the sale and supply of single-use vapes.

Holyrood agreed the date with Westminster and Cardiff to ensure it is a Britain-wide ban.

Campaigner Laura Young said: "It's great that the UK is coming together to tackle this."

Under draft regulations just published, polluting disposable vapes will be banned from April 1, 2025.

It follows a recommendation to outlaw the gadgets from a UK-wide consultation into youth vaping, now an epidemic across the country.

Since last January our Bin The Vapes campaign has been raising the alarm on the threat of cheap, colourful, candy-flavoured vapes to both our kids' health and the environment.

One in four 15-year-old Scots use vapes, a study revealed, and more than 26million vapes were thrown away in Scotland in the last year, with 10 per cent dropped as litter and more than half disposed of wrongly.

As well as turning our streets, parks and beaches into a dumping ground, the devices also waste huge amounts of the precious lithium needed for electric car batteries and other rechargeable devices.

These vapes' tiny batteries can also spark dangerous fires in bins, lorries and waste centres when wrongly disposed of.

Laura, who has been campaigning against the blight of single-use vapes since 2022, told the Record she was "absolutely thrilled" by the ban.