J&B News & Updates

01.06.26

Just recently, one of our collection vehicles caught fire whilst out on its recycling round after what is believed to have been a vape or lithium battery had been incorrectly placed inside a recycling bin.

Thankfully, nobody was injured, but the incident delayed collections, damaged the vehicle and put our driver and crew in a dangerous situation whilst the fire was brought under control.

Sadly, this is not a one-off incident. Fires caused by vapes and lithium batteries have been an issue for several years across the waste and recycling industry, with waste companies across the UK reporting hundreds of fires linked to batteries and incorrectly disposed of vapes every year.

Despite the recent disposable vape ban, around 6 million vapes and pods are still being thrown away every week across the UK, with many continuing to end up in recycling and general waste bins.

Jonathan Wood, Transport Coordinator at J&B Recycling, said: “People don’t realise the damage one vape can cause until you’re stood watching smoke come out the back of the wagon.”

Vapes contain lithium batteries. Lithium metal reacts with oxygen and moisture in the air and can ignite under certain conditions, particularly when damaged, or heated. With highly combustible recyclable materials such as paper and cardboard surrounding the load, fires can spread quickly through collection vehicles and recycling facilities.

At our facilities, our teams regularly remove vapes from recycling loads by hand before they reach MRF equipment and throughout the process, to reduce the risk of fires onsite. However, these items should never have entered the recycling stream in the first place.

All of the vapes recovered at our MRF are removed by hand, as there is currently no technology capable of reliably identifying them. Their mixed-material construction, combined with the wide variation in shape, size and colour, makes automated detection and separation extremely difficult. As a result, while we recover thousands of vapes each year, it is likely that a significant number remain within the waste stream and pass through to our reprocessors, creating additional operational and safety challenges further along the recycling chain.

Despite the ban on single-use vapes introduced in June 2025, many reusable devices continue to be treated as disposable products, with consumers often discarding them after only limited use rather than reusing or recycling them properly.

Although retailers and shops which sell vapes should offer a take-back scheme for customers, many still do not, leaving consumers with limited disposal options and confusion around how these items should be recycled safely.

We are continuing to urge residents and businesses across the North East to think carefully about how they dispose of vapes and battery-powered items. They should never end up in your household bin (recycling or general)! Instead, they should be taken to a designated vape or battery recycling point, which can often be found at supermarkets, participating vape retailers and household waste recycling centres.

Correct disposal helps protect our teams, vehicles, facilities and the wider recycling process from preventable fires and damage. For more information on Why are vapes bad for the environment?

📸 Please note: AI has been used to create the accompanying image of a crew member tackling the fire. They were understandably a little too busy dealing with the real fire to stop for photographs.