Fire safety warning over vapes put in bins

Material Focus said it found eight million vapes were being thrown away every week last year

Vapes containing lithium batteries are still being thrown into general rubbish collections despite the risk they could cause fires, a council has said.

The sale of disposable vapes was banned in June but Biffa, the UK's largest waste contractor, said it was dealing with more vapes in its collections than it was before.

Stuart Gourley, of West Berkshire Council, said it was "absolutely critical" that people disposed of the devices appropriately and did not put them into their general waste.

Local authorities have warned of possible damage caused by lithium batteries for years, with incidents including a fire that wreaked £20,000 worth of damage in Reading in 2023.

"It can be a real issue and a real concern and it's certainly something we have seen here in west Berkshire," Gourley said.

"It's absolutely critical that people don't put them in their black bin and they use a safe route to dispose of them."

Scott Butler, from Material Focus, an independent group that aims to stop critical materials going into waste, said the ongoing issue was not surprising.

Its own research found last year that eight million disposable vapes were being thrown away or littered every week.

"That is a loss of really valuable resources and a major fire risk," Mr Butler added.

"The producers of the vapes have invested a lot to have adapted them to create rechargeable ones, in theory.

"But to most users of vapes, they don't look any different. They are not priced any differently, they don't taste any different and some behaviour that was placed into the disposable vapes culture is still there."