'Impossible' to ban throwaway vapes says Electric Picnic promotor

Electric Picnic has pulled back on its ban of vaping at the Laois festival this year.

The promotor Melvin Benn spoke this week to press to say that banning their use at the festival is "impossible".

He said it would be "very difficult" to stop people bringing in their own, but disposable vapes will not be sold on site.

“It would be impossible to ban everybody bringing them. The ban is primarily on retail. These disposable vapes are no bigger than a matchbox. It would be very difficult to police it so that absolutely none come in. But our position at Electric Picnic is we won’t retail them.

“They’re difficult to recycle, not impossible but very difficult and we think that unfortunately people put them generally into a waste stream and not recycling. Therefore we’ve taken the decision to discourage people from bringing them as much as we can, to respect the Electric Picnic values and to respect the environment,” Melvin Benn said.

Disposable vapes are still officially prohibited at the festival this year, as stated on their website.

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"Disposable vapes are made of a mixed compound of materials which make them very difficult to recycle and hazardous to the environment if not disposed of correctly. Electric Picnic has taken the decision to add Single Use Disposable Vapes to the list of prohibited items, in order to protect the land the festival site is on."