Battery recycling to be halted after eight fires

A south Devon council will stop collecting batteries for recycling after they caused eight fires in its bin lorries and tips.

Teignbridge Council said the fires were contained but "the potential consequences could have been devastating, creating risk to life and significant disruption to waste collection services".

Only a quarter of councils collect batteries for recycling, and from April 2027 Teignbridge intends to stop collecting them too.

Members of the council's overview and scrutiny committee are due to meet on Tuesday, with changes to recycling services on the agenda.

The council said batteries accounted for 100th of 1% of the local authority's overall recycling, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Crews often found it difficult to spot batteries among other waste, it said, meaning the batteries often ended up travelling through the recycling machinery, increasing the risk of more fires.

A report prepared for the meeting said changes would need to be made to comply with the government's Simpler Recycling reforms, aimed at making recycling services the same across the country.

Teignbridge already meets most of the government's requirements, but needs to add cartons to its kerbside collections by March this year and plastic bags and wrapping by March 2027.

The council carried out a plastics trial across hundreds of local households, which put their waste plastic bags inside another large plastic bag for collection.

The favoured option - costing £185,000 in its first setup year and £64,000 in its second - is for plastic bags, wrapping and cartons to be added to the regular recycling service using existing recycling boxes.

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