A potentially serious recycling vehicle fire was avoided in Exeter on Wednesday after a waste collection crew spotted smoke coming from the back of their lorry while on their round.
The suspected cause was a lithium battery that exploded inside a printer cartridge that had entered the recycling stream, where it should never have been.
The crew activated the vehicle’s compacting mechanism to cut off oxygen to the fire, parked safely and called the fire service. Firefighters arrived quickly and instructed the crew to eject the full recycling load, whereupon they extinguished the fire.
The incident has again highlighted a growing concern about battery fires in waste and recycling services. Despite a growing number of high-profile fires making headlines, batteries are still ending up in household bins.
The event caused considerable disruption on Pinhoe Road, near the city centre, during early morning rush-hour traffic. The road had to be closed while the fire was extinguished and the waste cleared.
Cllr Ruth Williams, Deputy Leader and Lead Councillor for Support Services and City Management, praised the crew’s response.
She said: “Thanks to them, nobody was injured and the vehicle suffered only minor damage. They did what they were trained to do – but it could have been prevented by someone thinking more carefully about what they threw in the bin.”
Last year in Exeter, a battery inside a discarded vape caused around £25,000 of damage to a collection vehicle.
But the biggest concern is not the financial cost — it is the risk to life. Every battery fire can put collection crews, recycling facility staff, firefighters, motorists and pedestrians at risk.
Cllr Williams said: “A battery thrown into a bin does not disappear when the lid closes. It enters a system where it can be crushed, punctured and damaged, potentially triggering a fire within seconds.
“The danger is particularly acute when items containing batteries are hidden inside recycling loads. By the time a battery is discovered, it is often already moving through machinery, having been compacted inside a vehicle full of flammable material. Batteries, vapes and small electrical items must never be placed in household mixed recycling bins.”
Battery-related fires in bin lorries, recycling centres and waste management facilities are now regularly reported locally and nationally, making ignorance increasingly difficult to defend.
Lithium batteries power countless everyday items, from phones and headphones to power tools, toys, e-bikes, printers and vapes. None of these items is recyclable with packaging waste, yet they continue to appear in household waste and recycling bins.
“Every preventable battery fire in one of our lorries creates a cost that is ultimately borne by the public,” said Cllr Williams.
“Expensive equipment can be damaged or destroyed, operations disrupted and recyclable materials lost. Most importantly, emergency service resources are diverted. When a fire engine is dealing with a bin lorry fire, it cannot be somewhere else. When a vehicle needs repairs, the bill is paid from public funds.
“The crews cannot see contamination buried in the bin, so it is vital that our residents understand what can and can’t go in their bins.
“I would like to thank the majority of our residents who do the right thing and don’t dispose of batteries in recycling or household waste but take them to battery recycling points.”
The Council is urging residents to remember that batteries and electrical items have dedicated recycling routes. Retailers that sell electrical products, including vapes, must provide take-back and recycling options, while batteries can be recycled at numerous collection points.
Check the A-Z of waste and recycling on the Council website to see what can be recycled.
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