MORE than 25,000 vapes are likely being swept up from Aberdeenshire streets each month, the region’s local authority has revealed.
The findings come following a trial by Levenseat, which Aberdeenshire Council supplies with around 250 tonnes of street sweepings and gully emptying each month. The waste management specialist utilised an eddy current separator to reveal around 5,000 vapes from just 50 tonnes of Aberdeenshire’s sweepings and gully waste.
This comes despite specialised drums being available at all Aberdeenshire household recycling centres to allow for vapes to be safely disposed of before being transported to Veolia in Portsmouth for recycling.
Chair of Aberdeenshire Council’s infrastructure services committee (ISC), councillor Alan Turner, said, “It is alarming how fast the rise of single use vapes has been. When we think about all the precious materials that are used to create them, just for them to be thrown away on our streets, it must surely be the truest meaning of e-waste.”
