2022 Impact Awards winner: Imperial Tobacco Canada

A guiding principle for Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. is its determination to build “A Better Tomorrow.” So, when it came time to launch Vuse in Canada in 2019, sustainability and reduced environmental impact were essential.

That determination led, in August 2021, to “Drop the Pod,” the brand’s first safe disposal pilot program.

“There were two big challenges,” said Pascal Durand, head of Vuse, for Imperial Tobacco Canada. “First it was setting up the logistics behind the operations to be able to expand the Vuse safe recycling program to as many Vuse consumers as possible.” 

Working with a leading recycling partner, empty Vuse pods are safely incinerated, while old Vuse devices get recycled. Any collected e-liquid from Vuse pods is used as fuel in cement production, while collected metals from Vuse devices are transformed into raw material for the manufacture of new products.

“The second big challenge was communicating the program to as many adult Vuse consumers in Canada as possible given the very restrictive legal environment.” Vuse is offering Drop the Pod safe disposal bags at Vuse.com, free of charge, introducing incentives for the return of disposal bags and by the end of the year, it hopes to have several hundred participating locations in Ontario.

“The most rewarding part of this has been hearing Vuse consumers and retail partners tell us that this program is exactly what they had been looking for and to see them actively use it,” says Durand.