Veolia campaigns for more safety : Unsafe disposal of electrical items causes daily fires

Veolia has launched a nationwide campaign in the UK to address the growing number of fires occurring across its operations, which now average one preventable incident per day. The initiative aims to educate the public on the dangers posed by certain types of waste, highlighting the risks they create for waste handlers and the potential damage to essential recycling infrastructure.

These fires are happening across the country in refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) within residential areas, as well as at waste management facilities. The cause is often residents mistakenly placing hazardous items in their recycling, waste bins, or street litter bins, which endangers both Veolia staff and the public.

The campaign includes videos that will be shared on social media, featuring real footage of past fires and explosions. These videos focus on the dangers of four commonly misplaced household items and the serious impact they have on those involved in waste collection, sorting, and processing.

• Used vapes should be returned to the retailer and never placed in household recycling, rubbish bins, or street litter bins.
• Electrical items: anything with batteries, plugs, cables, or hidden batteries, such as children's toys or electric toothbrushes—can be recycled but must be taken to specialized facilities. Residents can locate these facilities using the recycling locator at recyclenow.com/recycling-locator.
• Batteries are easy to recycle at designated facilities, which can also be found through recyclenow.com/recycling-locator.
• Gas cylinders and nitrous oxide (NOx) canisters must be safely disposed of. Typically, they can be taken to local household reuse and recycling centers, but residents should verify this locally.

When vapes, electrical items, batteries, and gas cylinders are crushed, they become highly flammable. This poses serious risks to collection crews and workers at recycling and waste processing facilities, including burns, chemical exposure, and smoke inhalation—injuries that can be life-changing. Additionally, these fires can cause significant damage to critical recycling infrastructure.

For more information and to view real footage of the dangers posed by hazardous waste, residents are encouraged to visit veolia.co.uk/dangerous-waste.

Cory Reynolds, Director of Corporate Affairs, Veolia UK, Northern Europe Zone, said: “At Veolia we pride ourselves on carrying out essential services whilst putting safety first in the workplace, and we do not accept our people or the communities we serve being put in danger. This campaign is necessary to educate residents on how to ensure their waste is safe, and we ask everyone to make these simple changes that will greatly decrease the chance of fires in collection vehicles and sorting facilities. This will have a huge impact on keeping the vital industry we work in safe and ensure that the people that handle waste are kept out of harm’s way whilst protecting the valuable materials residents work hard to separate for recycling.”