Who should pay to clean up the Glasgow Union Street fire?

In March, everyone in Scotland watched fire consume a historic building on Glasgow’s Union Street, right next to Central Station. Thankfully, there was no loss of life or injuries, however, the financial loss and disruption of the Glasgow fire have been huge. The First Minister immediately pledged £10m of public money to help the city rebuild. However, this will not deal with the underlying issues that led to the fire – unchecked corporate greed which puts profits before people and nature.

What caused the Glasgow fire?

The fire started at a vape shop. Vapes are highly flammable because they contain lithium-based batteries and the fire quickly ran out of control as a chain reaction led to more vapes exploding in the flames. 

This week a new UK law will introduce a lifelong ban on anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes. This is a huge step forward for public health and is expected to save many lives. The law also introduces restrictions on vapes, banning them from being branded, promoted and advertised to children. 

However, vapes are not included in the lifelong ban, failing to protect young people from them. Despite having lower risks than smoking, vaping can still have serious health consequences, including lung damage and cardiovascular disease.

The problem with vapes

There are other concerns with vapes. In 2023, 26 million disposable vapes were used and thrown away in Scotland – that’s almost one a second. These flammable products pose risks for those that must clean them up. One waste management company experienced 339 fires at their sites last year from vapes. 

The lithium in vapes is problematic too. It is obtained through supply chains linked to human rights abuses, including worker exploitation, depleting scarce water sources used by locals and high levels of corruption. When vapes are discarded, the lithium in them is also thrown away. This material is critical for electric cars, wind turbines and battery storage, but demand outstrips supply. Throwing lithium away in vapes is a terrible waste of precious resources.

And yet, despite these concerns, some companies still design cheap, low quality vapes. They defend their products using the playbook written long ago by Big Tobacco: influence the science to confuse people, oppose legislation designed to protect us and use loopholes to continue selling their dangerous products anyway.

The way vapes are sold today shows us that we live in a world where power now belongs to big businesses that care more about their profits than our health, the environment and the lives of others. The companies that make and market vapes are the ones who created this problem and they are the ones who should be paying for the cleanup of the fire in Glasgow, not the Scottish public.

But vape companies are not the only problem in this story – weak government, unwilling to stand up to corporate power, has failed to protect the public from the dangers of these products. 

Impact of the vape ban

In 2025, the Scottish Government, along with the rest of the UK, banned disposable vapes. A spokesperson from Elfbar, the UK’s largest disposable vape company at the time, was untroubled by this, stating that the company will ‘pivot the business’ to reusable vapes. 

This is exactly what has happened. Reusable vapes cost and look the same as disposable vapes and contain lithium. And, as the Glasgow fire shows, they are still just as dangerous as banned vapes too. 

The Scottish Government has spent much time and money creating a law that has been shown to be catastrophically ineffective a few months after its introduction. How damaging will the fire have to be next time before politicians act to protect people?

A better future is possible

The exploitative nature of vape companies are one example of a system that puts profit before people and nature. From fast fashion to mountains of plastic and sewage sludge, big businesses are making the rich richer whilst leaving everyone else to deal with the damage and pollution they create. 

A better future is possible, where these companies are made to sell less wasteful products and pay to clean up the pollution they create. This requires Governments to stand up to big business, like vape companies, and make them responsible for the damage of their products. Vapes must be safer and their use reduced, to protect people and reserve lithium for where it is needed most. It is one step towards a fairer and more sustainable future for us all.

A version of this article first appeared in The National on 4/5/26