01/06/2026
More control needed.
Please do not place any batteries in bins !
♻ A refuse firm has said that people are still putting a ‘banned’ item in rubbish - risking £600 immediate fines - and putting workers at risk - and people don’t know about the rule.
❌ Carla Brian from Biffa said despite a ban being introduced on disposable v**es a year ago, they are still facing big issues.
Under the current rules people are not allowed to dispose of v**es in the rubbish - and yet thousands do every day. She explained on BBC Breakfast that the company found 200,000 v**es in waste last month in just four recycling facilities.
She said about five fires happen every day due to v**es which are dumped in the waste. Biffa is calling on a deposit of up to £5 to be charged on v**es to encourage people to dispose of them properly.
She told BBC Breakfast: “The awareness that’s out there and the risks that are associated with putting v**es in household containers isn’t enough. So, what we want is a consumer behavior change and that being that consumers take their v**es back to the stores that they bought them, that they’re legally obligated to do so and to take those back and we think an incentive is the way to do that.”
The presenter said it’s a year since the disposable v**e ban - but fires are still breaking out. Ms Brian responded: “It’s a huge problem across the industry. Roughly around five fires a day are happening and that’s from household collection uh vehicles like the one behind me and commercial vehicles. Last month alone in our four biggest recycling facilities that treat household waste, we saw over 200,000 v**es contained within the waste.”
Putting a v**e in your general household refuse or recycling bins is illegal in the UK and carries a penalty of up to £600 under household waste duty of care regulations. Because v**es contain lithium-ion batteries, placing them in standard bins poses severe fire risks in bin lorries and waste facilities.
Under the Environmental Services Association’s (ESA) proposal, a deposit would be charged on v**es when purchased, and returned to customers when they dispose of the v**e properly.
V**es can already be returned to stores where they are purchased - which are meant to have facilities to take them back - or returned to recycling facilities.
They should not be put in normal bins, general recycling, or littered in the environment. The ESA says a deposit would have to be large enough to incentivise people to dispose of v**es properly.
Patrick Brighty, ESA’s head of recycling policy, said: “Despite the ban, each week operators across the waste sector continue to see hundreds of thousands of carelessly discarded v**es arrive at their facilities hidden among other waste, which poses a major fire risk.
“V**es discarded with other rubbish are also unlikely to be recycled, which is a chronic waste of the precious materials they contain.”
He said the existing infrastructure to take back and recycle v**es was “currently underperforming” because of a lack of incentives for people to use it.
The number of v**es thrown away each week has fallen since disposables were banned, but only from 8.2 million per week to about six million, according to recycling organisation Material Focus.
Biffa, the UK’s largest waste company, has put forward the figure of £5, but that would be subject to consultation if the idea progresses.
The Local Government Association (LGA) has called for these to be banned. Chairwoman of the LGA's health and wellbeing committee, councillor Dr Wendy Taylor, said year two of the ban must focus on enforcement and closing the "loophole" of these v**es.
"A year on, the volume of v**es in our bins has dropped, but industry has moved faster than regulation – the products causing fires in our bin lorries today are effectively the same disposables in a different shell," she said.
Marcus Saxton, chairman of the Independent British V**e Trade Association, conceded there was "more to be done" in encouraging people to recycle v**es.
But he warned a deposit scheme would encourage people to buy from illicit retailers who didn't make them pay it.
✍ Ben Hurst
