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Sep 28, 2023

The 1.3m disposable e-cigarettes discarded every week often end up in general waste and their broken batteries are highly flammable

Disposable vapes are behind a dramatic rise in fires at recycling plants over the last year, raising the risk of a major blaze releasing toxic fumes and polluting air, industry experts warn.

Recycling firms are now dealing with so many vapes that they are struggling to insure their facilities. Some are now using artificial intelligence to detect vapes and their lithium-ion batteries, as well as installing thermal imaging cameras and automatic foam jets.

The hazardous material dealt with at waste and recycling plants means they can potentially cause fires similar to 2020's Bradford tyre fire which burned for a week and forced 20 schools to close and required every firefighter in West Yorkshire.

Around 1.3m single-use vapes are now thrown away each week in the UK – an extraordinary rise since the first was sold in 2019 – and many are dumped by the roadside or in general waste. They contain lithium-ion batteries, which easily catch fire if broken, and some vapers have suffered life-changing injuries after theirs have exploded.

Research by Material Focus, a non-profit organisation which runs the Recycle Your Electricals campaign, found that more than 700 fires in bin lorries and recycling centres were caused by batteries that had been dumped into general waste.

Grundon, which recycles around 80,000 tonnes of household and municipal waste a year, has seen an increase in the number of disposable vapes being picked up by road sweeping vehicles, whose circular brushes usually collect leaves and stones.

"They’re sold as disposable so people just throw them on the floor," said Owen George, division manager for Grundon. "We didn't see any about a year or so ago, but now they’re everywhere. We probably pick out 100 to 150 on an eight-hour shift. And they’re just the ones we catch."

The ones they don't catch can end up in their non-recyclable waste stream with items such as Pringles cans, plastic wrappers and disposable coffee cups. These are chopped and packed into bales, a process that can break open a lithium-ion battery, which can then easily catch fire. Grundon has had three or four fires in the past year alone at just one site.

"We’ve managed to put them out, but the frequency is really growing," George said. "It's not just us – it's affecting everyone in the industry."

Grundon has installed fire detection equipment costing about £250,000 at each of its facilities. "We’ve put in thermal-imaging cameras and, in some places, we’ve got automated cannons that lock on to the fire and hit it with water and foam to put it out."

Insurers have become reluctant to cover the waste industry because of the fire risk, with premiums growing and expensive fire safety systems now a requirement. Artificial intelligence is another option.

About 70% of the recycling facilities market in Europe is operated by companies who now use AI developed by Greyparrot.

"We have a box that has a camera inside and we take continuous images of the waste stream, then use AI to detect and analyse those images," said Mikela Druckman, Greyparrot's chief executive.

The system can recognise 67 types of material which can then be sorted – iron and steel can be picked up magnetically, while lighter PET plastic bottles can be blown off with a burst of air.

"We’re doing several projects, mainly in Austria but now also in the UK, where we’re identifying batteries in the waste stream," Druckman said.

Justin Guest, co-founder of Archipelago Eco, which invests in recycling technology, said that banning vapes would be "a blunt instrument", adding: "It doesn't solve the problem because it's not just vapes – there are batteries in so many things now. People will always get stuff and throw it away.

"There will be some other consumer craze that comes along and these materials will always find their way into the waste stream. So you need safeguards, and you need technology to solve that problem."

About 138m single-use vapes are now sold in the UK each year, containing enough lithium for about 1,200 electric vehicle batteries.

This article was amended on 15 May 2023. An earlier version said that 70% of UK recycling facilities now use AI developed by Greyparrot; it is 70% of the recycling facilities market in Europe that is operated by companies who use this AI.