COURIER OPINION: Dundee vape ban – no easy answers to modern-day menace

There is no doubting that disposable vapes are an environmental menace.

Like rats, they never seem to be more than a few feet away in the modern cityscape.

That is certainly the experience of our own reporter, Joanna Bremner, who recently did a vape walk and found dozens of the single-use items littering the towns and cities of Courier Country.

Now local MSP Mercedes Villalba is proposing Dundee becomes the first city in Scotland to ban vapes outright and is calling on the first minister to set up a pilot scheme.

While it may sound good on paper, the practicalities of introducing such a ban are far from clear.

Who would police it?

What would the consequences be for anyone flouting it?

Single-use vapes are certainly a growing problem environmentally.

But it is questionable whether the proposed ban is the solution.