Last year a lithium battery caught fire in one of our refuse trucks. Within seconds all the rubbish inside it was ablaze and the entire contents had to be emptied in the road for the fire service to put out. We posted a film of the incident on social media which went viral with a million views.
by Andreas Christophorou
Why did it catch fire? When crushed by the vehicle, these batteries can explode and set fire to rubbish and other lithium batteries in it.
Across the UK, waste truck and recycling site fires have increased by more than 70 per cent in a single year, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council. In Tower Hamlets, we recorded 23 fires in the past year alone, all caused by batteries that were thrown into household waste.
It is no surprise when you think of how many items now have lithium batteries in them. In the past three months, I found that I was ready to dispose of a dozen of these products. Everything from giant light up spider webs and electric tea lights for pumpkins which I had bought on Temu for Halloween, to numerous Christmas toys from Amazon, vapes and an old mobile phone.
Other than the safety issues involved, a refuse truck fire can delay a collection route by up to 48 hours. That has profound implications for inner city places like Tower Hamlets. We are the most densely populated place in the country and 87% of properties are flats where residents often use communal bins and shared collection points
Two years ago, we launched an award-winning Charge Safe campaign with London Fire Brigade to warn about the dangers of fires caused by exploding lithium batteries in ebikes and escooters. It has helped reduce the number of fires in Tower Hamlets caused by these vehicles from two to one a month.
We used that as a template to create Dispose Safe – a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of putting products with lithium batteries in the bin, and how to dispose of them safely. It includes an animation produced with creative agency Alive With Ideas.
There is an elephant in the room though. The onus is on the public to take these products to battery disposal points which are usually participating supermarkets or local authority rubbish depots.
We know that successful behaviour change relies on it being easy for people to do, but that is problematic. A resident is unlikely, for example, to travel to the other side of a borough to go to a refuse centre to dispose of some used batteries or small toys with them in.
More support is needed from central government to help fund better local infrastructure so that people have disposal points near them, making them convenient to use.
We need policy to catch up with the speed of development of these products and, like e bikes and e scooters, create infrastructure and legislation to ensure their safe use and disposal.
In the meantime, Tower Hamlets Council is offering local authorities the campaign to use for free to help reduce the growing problem.
You can watch the animation and access campaign materials here at
www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/dispose-safeIf you want to use the animation or any of our campaign adverts then please drop me an email at andreas.christophorou@towerhamlets.gov.uk
Andreas Christophorou is director of communications and marketing at London Borough of Tower Hamlets
