A waste management company has warned that people are still discarding a 'banned' item in their rubbish — risking immediate fines of £600 — while putting workers in danger, with many remaining oblivious to the regulation. Speaking today, Carla Brian from Biffa revealed that despite a ban on disposable vapes being introduced a year ago, the problem continues to cause significant difficulties.

Under existing regulations, vapes must not be disposed of in general waste — yet thousands of people do so every single day. She told BBC Breakfast that the firm discovered 200,000 vapes in waste last month across just four recycling facilities alone.

Ms Brian revealed that approximately 5 fires break out daily as a direct result of vapes being dumped in waste. Biffa is now calling for a deposit of up to £5 to be levied on vapes in order to encourage consumers to dispose of them responsibly.

She told BBC Breakfast: "The awareness that's out there and the risks that are associated with putting vapes in household containers isn't enough. So, what we want is a consumer behavior change and that being that consumers take their vapes back to the stores that they bought them, that they're legally obligated to do so and to take those back and we think an incentive is the way to do that."

The BBC presenter noted that it has been a year since the disposable vape ban — yet fires continue to break out. Ms Brian said: "It's a huge problem across the industry. Roughly around five fires a day are happening and that's from household collection uh vehicles like the one behind me and commercial vehicles. Last month alone in our four biggest recycling facilities that treat household waste, we saw over 200,000 vapes contained within the waste."

Disposing of a vape in your regular household rubbish or recycling bins is against the law in the UK, carrying a penalty of up to £600 under household waste duty of care regulations. As vapes contain lithium-ion batteries, placing them in standard bins presents a serious fire hazard in bin lorries and waste processing facilities.

Under the Environmental Services Association's (ESA) proposal, a deposit would be charged on vapes at the point of purchase, and reimbursed to customers upon proper disposal of the device.

Vapes can already be taken back to retailers where they were bought — which are required to have facilities to accept returns — or dropped off at recycling centres.

They must not be placed in general waste bins, standard recycling, or discarded in the environment.

The ESA maintains that any deposit would need to be sufficiently substantial to encourage consumers to dispose of vapes responsibly. Patrick Brighty, ESA's head of recycling policy, said: "Despite the ban, each week operators across the waste sector continue to see hundreds of thousands of carelessly discarded vapes arrive at their facilities hidden among other waste, which poses a major fire risk.

"Vapes discarded with other rubbish are also unlikely to be recycled, which is a chronic waste of the precious materials they contain."

He warned that the existing infrastructure for collecting and recycling vapes was "currently underperforming" due to insufficient incentives for consumers to make use of it.

The number of vapes discarded weekly has declined since disposables were prohibited, yet only from 8.2 million per week to approximately six million, according to recycling organisation Material Focus.

Biffa, the UK's largest waste company, has proposed a figure of £5, though this would be subject to consultation should the proposal move forward.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has demanded that these be outlawed. Chairwoman of the LGA's health and wellbeing committee, councillor Dr Wendy Taylor, said year two of the ban must focus on enforcement and closing the "loophole" of these vapes.

"A year on, the volume of vapes in our bins has dropped, but industry has moved faster than regulation – the products causing fires in our bin lorries today are effectively the same disposables in a different shell," she said. Marcus Saxton, chairman of the Independent British Vape Trade Association, conceded there was "more to be done" in encouraging people to recycle vapes.

However, he warned that a deposit scheme would encourage people to buy from illicit retailers who didn't make them pay it.