What happened in 2026
On 8 March 2026 a fire in a building next to Glasgow Central station closed Scotland's busiest railway station and needed more than 200 firefighters. It was reported to have started in a ground-floor vape shop, and it put lithium-ion battery safety on the front page in a way that years of bin lorry fires had not.
Those bin lorry fires are the everyday version. Glasgow City Council reported two serious fires in its refuse vehicles in a single August, both believed to have been caused by batteries or electrical items in household bins, and at least five in a year. The council's response was Take Charge Glasgow, a campaign with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service telling residents never to bin a battery or a vape.
On 17 August 2026 a City of Edinburgh Council crew in Polwarth noticed their load smouldering, stopped, and tipped it onto the street so the fire service could put it out. The cause was lithium-ion batteries from discarded devices crushed during collection. The council's statement noted several similar incidents before it.
- 8 March 2026: fire beside Glasgow Central, 200+ firefighters
- Reported to have started in a ground-floor vape shop
- 17 August 2026: Edinburgh lorry load dumped in Polwarth
- Crushed lithium batteries found smouldering
- Glasgow: at least five bin lorry fires in a year
- Take Charge Glasgow campaign with the fire service
Why a crushed battery burns
A lithium-ion cell stores a lot of energy in a small space, held apart by a thin separator. Crush it, puncture it or overheat it and the separator fails, the cell short-circuits and it enters what the fire service calls thermal runaway: a self-sustaining fire that produces its own oxygen and cannot be smothered.
The compactor on a bin lorry and the shredders at a recycling plant are crushing machines by design. A vape or a phone battery that survives the bin does not survive the lorry. Once one cell goes, it ignites the paper and plastic packed around it.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has warned that rechargeable battery fires are rising and expects the risk to grow as more products carry these batteries. Across the UK, waste industry members reported 1,518 fires in the year to March 2026, with 541 linked to lithium-ion batteries and 216 in bin lorries.
Got a drawer of dead electricals?
Tell us what has a battery. It stays out of the compactor and goes down the WEEE route.
The vape problem after the ban
Single-use vapes were banned across Scotland on 1 June 2025. Before the ban Zero Waste Scotland estimated up to 26 million disposable vapes were thrown away in Scotland in a year, with more than half disposed of incorrectly and around one in ten littered.
The ban removed the throwaway product but not the battery. Rechargeable vapes still contain a lithium cell, still end up in bins, and still burn when crushed. In June 2026 the UK's largest waste company called for a £5 deposit on vapes to get them back to shops, citing more than two million wrongly discarded vapes found at just four of its sites.
Retailers that sell vapes are required to take old ones back, and shops that sell batteries must accept used batteries. That is the route. The practical guide is in how to dispose of vapes and batteries in Scotland.
What you should do with them
Never put a battery, a vape or anything with a built-in rechargeable battery in any household bin, general or recycling. That includes electric toothbrushes, cordless tools, toys, headphones and the cheap fairy lights from Christmas.
Take loose batteries and vapes to a shop take-back point or a council recycling centre. Take whole devices to a recycling centre or a WEEE collection. Tape the terminals of loose lithium batteries and keep damaged or swollen ones out of the house until you can hand them in.
When you book a clearance with us, tell us what has a battery in it. We keep those items separate from the general load and send them down the WEEE disposal route rather than into a compactor. Bigger items are covered by appliance removal, and the full picture on electricals is in our electrical items guide.
