From vapes to jabs: A wake-up call For Britain’s bins
- SUEZ in the UK has revealed the ten products causing the biggest challenges for Britain’s recycling industry.
- Electronic devices are the worst offender, causing hundreds of fires and £1 billion in damage every year.
- Nitrous oxide canisters and mattresses also rank among the biggest culprits, alongside nappies.
- Weight loss jabs tipped to be a potential future problem as SUEZ calls for a new nationwide scheme with safe and accessible disposal routes.
Items containing lithium-ion batteries have been named the most dangerous items Brits routinely throw away, as new research reveals the everyday products disrupting the UK’s recycling system.
Leading recycling company SUEZ has revealed the scale of the cost, damage and disruption caused by the ten items causing the biggest problems to Britain’s waste system. The list ranges from mattresses and nappies to at-home injections. SUEZ is today calling on government to hold manufacturers to account for designing products with their end of life in mind.
Taking the top spot are vapes, with more than 150 discarded devices turning up at one recycling site every day. SUEZ reports that 368 fires last year were caused by lithium-ion batteries in vapes and other electricals igniting when crushed or damaged during processing. Across the industry, these fires are estimated to cause more than £1 billion in damage each year.
Nitrous oxide canisters rank second. SUEZ saw more than 7,000 explosions at its energy-from-waste facilities in 2025 – more than 20 per day. Mattresses ranked third due to the volume and size of products. SUEZ UK revealed it handled 7,500 tonnes of discarded mattresses in 2025 – more than the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
SUEZ has also warned that weight loss jabs could become the waste industry’s next headache, with an estimated 104 million now prescribed every year, posing a safety risk to frontline staff if discarded incorrectly. With their popularity skyrocketing, SUEZ is calling for a new nationwide scheme with safe and accessible disposal routes to prevent used syringes ending up in Britain’s recycling.
Dr Adam Read, Chief Sustainability Officer at SUEZ in the UK, said: “What we throw away has changed dramatically. Five years ago, vapes barely registered as an issue, but today, they’re the most problematic product we deal with.
“For every product bought in shops or online, government need to hold manufacturers to account for designing products with their end of life in mind. The issues we’re currently seeing related to items containing batteries should be a wake-up call.”
The top ten problematic materials include:
- Vapes
- Batteries
- Nitrous Oxide
- Mattress
- Flexible plastic packaging
- Nappies and absorbent hygiene products
- Paint and chemicals
- Food-contaminated recycling
- At-home injections
- Compostable packaging