Recycle festive tech this Christmas and help stop battery and electrical fires
Authorities across the Liverpool City Region are working with Recycle Your Electricals to encourage residents to join the ‘Stop Battery Fires’ campaign, which sets out to encourage the recycling of batteries and electrical gifts as part of an effort to reduce the surge of fires in the waste stream.
The campaign comes as it is revealed that binned battery-powered fairy lights alone stretch to the equivalent of just over seven Santa trips around the globe (1).
Lesley Worswick, Chief Executive of Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority, said: “Many 'FastTech' or light-up electrical items are powered by batteries which, if end up in the wrong bin, get crushed and damaged in bin lorries, waste transfer stations and Recycling Centres, sparking dangerous fires that put firefighters and waste workers at serious risk. All of the region's Household Waste Recycling Centres accept batteries, as do the majority of supermarkets, so we’d encourage people to dispose of them responsibly."
The Recycle Your Electricals campaign has found that 1.1bn of all types of electricals and 449.9m loose volatile batteries have been binned - each a potential fire waiting to happen (2).
In the UK, there were over 1,200 battery fires during 2023/24, an increase of 71% in 2022 - with many taking place in bin lorries, waste transfer stations and Recycling Centres as a result of batteries and electricals being binned or incorrectly recycled (3).
Since January 2024 there have been 155 fires at the MRWA/SUEZ Rail Transfer Loading Station in Kirkby, Knowsley – 61 in 2024 and 94 in 2025 so far (pictured below).
Steve Patterson, Processing Managing Director at SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, said: “A fire in one of our waste facilities is one of the things that we dread the most. A battery can go from nothing to a full-blown blaze in seconds, putting not just the facility but our teams at risk. With the rise in FastTech, and particularly at this time of year, it’s really important that the message to not put batteries or electrical items in waste or recycling bins becomes more widespread.”
Niamh McBride, Local Authority and Environmental Partnerships Manager at Material Focus, the not-for-profit behind the Recycle Your Electricals campaign, says: “When recycling any electrical item, if you can, make sure the battery is removed from the item. And then take your electricals and batteries to your nearest recycling point which you can find by searching up recycle your electricals and using our Postcode Locator. Most importantly, never bin your old batteries and electricals - always recycle them separately from household recycling or rubbish, to keep fire services, waste crews and local communities safe.”
When electricals are properly recycled, valuable resources including copper, lithium, gold and nickel, can be reused and recycled into new items such as mobile phones, laptops, smart watches, clean energy and even medical equipment.
It’s now easier than ever to recycle broken and unused electricals using Recycle Your Electricals’ Postcode Locator - https://www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk/electrical-recycling-near-me/. Just enter your postcode to find your nearest repair, donation or recycling point which has over 30,000 locations across the UK.
Visit www.recycleright.org.uk for local recycling advice in Liverpool City Region.