Fires Exposing Britain’s Waste Blind Spot

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• Fires Exposing Britain’s Waste Blind Spot

03 November 2026 | Updated 02 November 2026

As digital waste tracking becomes mandatory, The Green Block – which has been digitally tracking waste on behalf of customers for years – warns that every discarded vape without a traceable end-of-life journey is a potential fire waiting to happen.

Britain's waste industry is facing an escalating crisis. Recycling centres are burning. Waste operators are counting the cost in the millions. Firefighters are being deployed in unprecedented numbers. And increasingly, investigators are pointing to one common culprit: improperly disposed lithium-ion batteries hidden inside everyday products, particularly disposable vapes.

Recent industry figures have linked hundreds of waste-sector fires to lithium-ion batteries, with major incidents placing communities, workers and critical infrastructure at risk.

The dramatic fire at a recycling facility in Bermondsey, which saw around 100 firefighters deployed to tackle thousands of tonnes of burning waste, has become a stark symbol of a growing national problem. Similar incidents across the UK are raising urgent questions about what happens to hazardous materials once they leave consumers' hands.

According to The Green Block (TGB), the answer lies not simply in better disposal, but in better accountability and transparency.

While digital waste tracking became mandatory in the UK earlier this month, TGB has been operating at the forefront of digital waste tracking for a number of years, using technology and data to provide its customers with greater visibility over what happens to their waste once it leaves their sites.

For TGB, digital tracking is not a new regulatory requirement to be responded to. It is already an established part of its approach to waste management, helping organisations understand where waste comes from, where it goes and what happens to it along the way.

The company's experience has also reinforced its belief that better data can deliver more than compliance. It can identify inefficiencies, improve environmental performance, provide greater accountability and, increasingly, help identify potential risks within the waste chain.

Disposable vapes represent a particularly dangerous challenge. Combining plastics, electronic components, hazardous materials and lithium-ion batteries in a single-use product, they create a perfect storm for waste operators. Once crushed in collection vehicles, compactors or sorting facilities, damaged batteries can enter thermal runaway and ignite surrounding waste streams. Industry experts now believe batteries may be responsible for a significant proportion of recycling and waste facility fires across the UK.

TGB argues that digital waste tracking should be viewed not merely as a compliance requirement, but as a public safety imperative.

For the first time, regulators, waste producers and operators will be able to create a far clearer picture of how hazardous waste moves through the system. The ability to monitor waste flows digitally, identify anomalies, improve reporting and create auditable records could help expose weaknesses long before they result in catastrophic incidents.

But according to TGB, the principle behind digital tracking is already well established.

Having spent years using digital technology to track and analyse waste on behalf of its customers, the company believes the forthcoming regulatory changes represent an important opportunity to take the industry-wide approach to the next level.

TGB is calling on businesses, local authorities, retailers and waste producers to embrace digital tracking technologies ahead of full implementation and to prioritise better management of vape products and lithium battery waste.

The company warns that without full visibility across the waste chain, Britain's transition towards a circular economy risk being undermined by a hidden epidemic of preventable fires.

Adam Williams, Managing Director and Co-Founder at The Green Block, said: "Every vape thrown into a general waste bin is more than litter. It's a potential ignition source. What's shocking is the industry still knows far too little about where many of these products ultimately end up. We have been digitally tracking waste for our customers for years, and what that experience has shown us is the value of having visibility across the entire waste journey.”

Williams continued: "When you know what is entering a waste stream, where it is going and how it is being treated, you are in a much stronger position to identify risks, make better decisions and hold the entire process to account."

Williams stressed: "The Bermondsey fire to name just one recently should be a wake-up call. We cannot continue to accept a situation where dangerous items enter the waste stream with little visibility of their journey and enormous consequences when things go wrong.”

Williams added: "Digital waste tracking gives the sector a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create transparency, accountability and ultimately safer outcomes. But we shouldn't be waiting for legislation to tell us that visibility matters. We've been demonstrating the value of digital tracking with our customers for years."

Williams noted: "The waste industry's latest fire isn't the story. The story is that we still don't have complete visibility over where millions of hazardous products end up after use.

Williams concluded: "Digital waste tracking can change that. We know from our own experience that better data creates better visibility and better decision-making. The question is not whether we can afford to implement it. It's whether we can afford not to."

Picture: An image of a group of men and women smoking vape outside a pub.

Article written by The Green Block | Published 03 November 2026

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