Lithium Battery Fires at Work: Causes and Prevention

Lithium-ion batteries power almost everything in a modern workplace: laptops, phones, power tools, forklifts, e-bikes, backup systems and countless devices with a battery quietly sealed inside. They are also the fastest-growing fire hazard in the UK waste stream, and most businesses are storing and discarding them without realising the risk.

The numbers are stark. Battery fires in UK bin lorries and at waste sites reached more than 1,200 in the last year, a 71% increase on the 700 recorded in 2022, according to Material Focus. Around 94% of local authorities now report that battery fires in the waste stream are a growing challenge, and the Environmental Services Association estimates these fires cost the UK over £100 million a year. The National Fire Chiefs Council has called the incorrect disposal of lithium-ion batteries a disaster waiting to happen.

For any business that produces battery waste, which is virtually all of them, this is now a duty of care and fire safety issue, not just an environmental one.

Why Lithium-Ion Batteries Catch Fire

The danger comes from a process called thermal runaway. When a lithium-ion cell is damaged, crushed, punctured, overheated or short-circuited, it can enter a self-sustaining chemical reaction that rapidly generates heat and flammable gases. Once it starts, it is extremely difficult to stop. These fires burn hot, reignite without warning, and release toxic fumes.

This is exactly what happens inside a waste vehicle or sorting line. A single battery hidden in a bin bag, compacted by a bin lorry or crushed on a picking belt, can ignite the dry, flammable material packed around it. Fires can burn for hours or even days, closing roads and recycling sites and putting waste operatives at serious risk.

The Risk Is Hiding in Plain Sight

Most businesses think of batteries as the loose AAs in a drawer. The real problem is the 1.1 billion electrical items containing hidden lithium-ion batteries thrown away in the UK each year, devices people don't even register as batteries.

Common workplace items with embedded lithium-ion cells include:

• Laptops, tablets, phones and wireless peripherals
• Cordless power tools and their battery packs
• Disposable and rechargeable vapes
• Emergency lighting and UPS backup units
• Handheld scanners, lone-worker devices and two-way radios
• E-bikes, e-scooters and mobility equipment
• Bluetooth speakers, headsets and smart devices

The vape problem alone is significant: even after the single-use vape ban came into force on 1 June 2025, millions are still binned every week, and one major operator reports roughly one fire a day across its fleet and facilities. If these devices end up in general waste or mixed recycling, every one is a potential ignition source.

What the Law Requires

Lead-acid, nickel-cadmium and mercury batteries are hazardous waste. Lithium-ion batteries carry a non-hazardous waste code but are handled and transported as Class 9 dangerous goods because of their fire and chemical risk, and all waste batteries are controlled by the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009. Combined with your duty of care under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, this places clear obligations on every business:

• Keep batteries out of general waste. They must be separated and collected by a licensed carrier for treatment at a permitted facility.
• Don't mix waste streams. Mixing hazardous waste, including batteries, with general waste is a specific criminal offence under the Hazardous Waste Regulations.
• Keep your documentation. Battery collections should be accompanied by the correct transfer or consignment paperwork, retained as evidence of compliant disposal.

Handing waste to an unauthorised carrier doesn't transfer the risk. Under duty of care, your business remains liable for what happens to that waste, even if you acted in good faith. For the full picture on documentation and your responsibilities, see our guide to the waste duty of care.

Preventing a Fire in Your Battery Store

Most workplace battery fires start in the gap between a battery being discarded and being collected. Three controls do most of the work: protect the terminals so cells cannot short, keep damaged or swollen batteries apart from healthy ones, and keep quantities low with regular collections. Train staff to recognise which devices contain batteries, particularly the hidden ones, so they never reach the general waste bin.

For the full storage, damaged-cell and transport procedure, follow our guide on how to dispose of lithium batteries.

How Waste Experts Handles Lithium Battery Recycling

Waste Experts is an Approved Battery Treatment Operator (ABTO) and a fully permitted Approved Authorised Treatment Facility (AATF), recognised by the Environment Agency as a benchmark best-practice installation. We collect and treat all battery chemistries, including lithium-ion, lead-acid and nickel-cadmium, with full Duty of Care documentation on every collection.

We provide the right storage containers for your site, schedule collections to keep on-site quantities (and fire risk) to a minimum, and treat batteries at our own facility rather than passing them down a chain of brokers. For higher-risk, higher-voltage work, our high-voltage recycling capability covers everything up to and including battery energy storage systems.

Because batteries are so often hidden inside electrical equipment, battery recycling sits alongside our wider WEEE and electrical waste recycling service, so a single collection can deal with the devices and the cells inside them. Our guide on how to dispose of batteries covers every other chemistry a commercial site produces.