Britain’s Battery Fire Crisis

Battery-related fires are becoming a serious concern for the waste sector, with The Guardian reporting more than 10 fires a week at recycling centres linked to wrongly discarded batteries. The scale of the problem raises wider questions about how the public can be better informed about the risks and how safe battery disposal can be encouraged.

Lithium-ion batteries are found in everyday products, from smartphones and electric toothbrushes to children’s toys and disposable vapes. People may not recognise the risk when throwing these items away. When crushed or damaged during waste handling, batteries can ignite.

The Environment Services Association estimates the annual cost of these incidents has risen from £150 million in 2021 to £1 billion today. For waste operators, fires put workers at risk, damage facilities and cause service disruption.

“We need to look at how easy we make it for people to dispose of batteries correctly,” says Neil Jeremiah, Managing Director at Endurance. “Telling someone not to put a battery or a small electrical item in their household bin is only part of the answer. Retailer collection points and recycling centres already offer alternatives, but there is scope to make returns more convenient so people don’t have to make a separate trip to dispose of them safely.”

“How products are designed and sold affects what happens at the end of their useful life. Manufacturers and retailers influence how easily products can be returned, while waste services must manage what arrives. These stages need to work together to make safe collection and material recovery easier to achieve.”

“Alongside preventing fires, better battery disposal can help recover valuable materials and reduce the need for newly extracted raw materials. The Environment Services Association’s proposed deposit scheme for vapes is one way to encourage people to return used products. The planned deposit return scheme for drinks containers, due to launch in October 2027, offers a relevant comparison: both proposals use a financial incentive to encourage returns, although they apply to different products and may operate differently.”

For the waste sector, preventing battery fires means looking beyond waste facilities and making safe disposal a practical part of everyday life.

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