IIt’s 2pm now and Anna, 47, has just started her afternoon shift at the Suez recycling factory near Birmingham city centre. She has a bucket of vapes in front of her and stands under a sign that says “Non-ferrous sorting station.” Separating and dismantling them is part of her job as a field worker.
Recycling them is not easy. Each bucket holds 40 to 50 devices, and she uses about half of the buckets during a shift. She must use a hammer to crack open each e-cig, pry out the battery, and separate each component into separate containers.
Disposable e-cigarettes were banned in June last year, but more than six million e-cigarettes and e-cigarette pods are still thrown away every week in the UK. Waste management companies say the sheer volume is putting a strain on recycling systems and that lithium-ion batteries hidden inside the equipment are causing fires.
A sweet scent fills the air as Anna works. She says she’s not worried about e-cigarettes exploding, and it’s never happened to her yet. However, while e-cigarettes may not be dangerous at this stage of separation, they can become dangerous if they are crushed or damaged, such as during waste collection or storage.
Suez said e-cigarettes were suspected as the cause of more than 80% of fires reported at its facilities last year. Photo: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian
In 2025, there were 670 fires at Suez’s UK sites. Of those, 368 were confirmed to be caused by batteries or e-cigarettes, and a further 176 were suspected to be related. Those working in the field say people simply don’t understand that e-cigarettes can’t be thrown away, or mistakenly think they can be recycled with household items. Instead, they must be taken to a dedicated electrical recycling point.
“E-cigarettes were suspected to be the cause in more than 80% of fires reported across our sites last year, and these numbers and trends continue into 2026,” said Dr. Adam Reid, Suez’s Chief Sustainability and External Affairs Officer.
“This is despite the ban on disposable e-cigs, which is due to come into effect in mid-2025. With more than six million e-cigs still being thrown away each week, it is clear that the perception of these items is still that they are disposable. The problem is that people are not aware of the dangers posed by batteries if they are not disposed of correctly, and think that sending them for recycling is the right thing to do.”
Anna, a recycling worker in Suez, gets to work removing batteries from disposable electronic cigarettes. Photo: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian
Reid added: “We estimate that across the industry, around £1 billion a year is being, or should be, being spent on tackling this issue… Fires are so prevalent that waste sites are now seen by insurers as some of the most at-risk facilities.”
He recalled that a major fire at the Aberdeen site four years ago destroyed the facility. “We’ve lost £20 million of our investment…this is a serious risk,” he says.
The root cause, Reid says, is simple: frequency. “Other battery-powered items, like electric toothbrushes, don’t show up as often in the waste stream because people keep them for years. But e-cigarettes are used and thrown away all the time. The amount is huge.”
All fire investigations now begin the same way. “Most of the time we look for lithium-ion batteries as a starting point and then ask, ‘Was it an e-cigarette?'”
The ban on disposable e-cigarettes was intended to address this problem, but industry officials argue that it simply changed the problem.
Around 150 e-cigarettes have already been found on the floors of Birmingham’s recycling site in just six hours since work began at 6am. According to staff, devices are changing, with larger rechargeable vapes like Hayati becoming more common in the waste stream, instead of the once-ubiquitous disposable brands like Elfbar.
A spokesperson for Elfbar said: “Used devices and refills should always be disposed of responsibly. Vapers are encouraged to use collection services provided by retailers who sell their vapes. Retailers have a statutory duty to collect them. Material Focus’ Recycle Your Electricals website also lists thousands of recycling points across the UK.”
Hayati did not respond to inquiries seeking comment.
Because these devices are often less expensive than disposable devices, critics argue that there is little incentive for users to change their behavior.
Steve Daniels, operations manager at Suez, said: “We’re seeing a change in the size of e-cigarettes being discarded because they need to be recharged. Previously you were looking at smaller e-cigarettes, like 600 puffs, but now you’re seeing them on the manufacturing floor, which are larger rechargeable types and have bigger batteries.”
When recycled materials arrive at the factory, they are first sorted by size. Large nonconforming items (such as nitrous oxide containers) are often removed. However, larger vaping devices, which are becoming more common, often slip past this stage and are instead identified later during aluminum separation, often inside crushed cans.
Suez staff say e-cigarette users are often unaware of the dangers posed if the device’s battery is not disposed of correctly. Photo: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian
Reid argues that producers should take more responsibility for the products they make. “We have been arguing that if the price of an e-cigarette is £10, it should include a handling cost of £5, which reflects the real cost of handling it safely,” he says. “That economic factor can change behavior.”
Another proposed solution is a deposit return scheme for e-cigarettes, similar to the one planned for beverage containers.
“If people could return their e-cigarettes and get a pound or two back, the number that ends up in municipal waste would be dramatically reduced,” he says. “This could reduce fire risk by 70 to 90 percent.”
For now, workers like Ana are burdened with carefully disassembling devices by hand, one bucket at a time.
A government spokesperson said: “We are determined to ensure more e-cigarettes are recycled correctly and safely and have made it mandatory for all e-cigarette retailers to provide recycling bins. We will continue to work with trading standards and local authorities to further strengthen the 10,500 collection bins already in place on high streets.”
