They taste sweet, are comfortable and, above all, cheap: disposable e-cigarettes. By the end of 2026, these vapes are to be replaced by refillable specimens across the EU. France is already taking the step.
The shelf of the small tobacco and vaping shop in a side street of the Champs-Élysées is full of the colorful sticks. They translated as nice names as eleven (“eleven bar”), a well -known Chinese brand. The offer includes harmless-sounding flavors such as apple/peach, lychee ice cream or watermelon with chewing gum. Tobacco dealer Ramon takes one from the shelf and unpacks them.
“You take the seal,” explains Ramon. “Then the two plastic stickers, which activates the battery – and all you have to do is pull on it.” Anyone who does this on the mouthpiece of the narrow plastic tube immediately envelop into a small perfumed cloud of steam. And that quickly, convenient and significantly cheaper than with conventional cigarettes.
While the 20-seater box in France is now around eleven euros for an average of 250 trains, you can get a disposable e-cigarette in the tobacco shop with twice as much steam outputs or “puffs” as they are called in France .
Up to 15,000 trains per piece
“This goes from 600 trains over 800 to 1,000 trains. And then there are 7,000, 13,000 and 15,000 trains.” The proportion of nicotine is also variable, from allegedly zero to conventional cigarette level.
But all these colorful small disposable plastic steamer will have to take tobacco dealers Ramon and his colleagues in France out of the shelf in the next few days. With its consent, the French Senate puts the end of a longer than two -year legislative process.
Lithium battery, burner, plastic parts
The lead French Senator Khalifé Khalifé says: “The disposable E-cigarettes that we have been in for several years are a market that aims at young people. 47 percent of young people between twelve and fifteen years have their first contact with nicotine had about these products. “
The Senator, active for the Moselle department on the German border, worked as a cardiologist and lung specialist in Metz. For him, the e-cigarettes not only make it dependent, but are potentially carcinogenic with their effects on mucous membrane and lungs. In addition, there is the devastating environmental and raw material balance of the disposable E-cigarettes: “There is already a lithium battery that is firmly installed, as well as burners and sheer plastic parts.”
Illegal trade runs in parallel
Due to the design, recycling is far too complex. Most of these disposable vapes end up in France in residual waste anyway – or simply in nature. More than 300 million pieces per year are said to have been produced for the French market last. So is over now.
If you use e -cigarettes, you now have to buy the much more expensive, rechargeable and fillable steam vessels in France. Similar to Germany, a large part of the market among young people runs through illegal channels.
According to Belgium, France is only the second country of the European Union in which the one-way vapes are banned. In Germany, they are still on regular trade. However, an EU battery regulation stipulates that the disposable E-cigarettes have to be removed from the entire EU by the end of 2026.
Cai Rienäcker, ARD Paris, Tagesschau, 13.02.2025 5:48 p.m.
