Where a Rechargeable Vape Goes After Use

In January, Luke Walter was at Biffa's recycling site in Aldridge when a battery from a vape caught fire. Walter, a manager responsible for the facility, later described the damage: the site needed a six-month rebuild. Emergency crews responded while his colleagues worked to bring the fire under control. A small device had reached a place built to sort other people's discarded things. The damage interrupted that work for months.¹

This happened before the UK ban on selling single-use vapes. When the ban began on 1 June 2025, shops could still sell vapes made to be charged and refilled with liquid or a new pod. If one contained a heating coil, that part had to be replaceable. The law changed the design a shop could offer. A separate take-back duty covers its disposal.²

That gap matters at the end of a device's life. Some vapes reach collection with the battery still inside. Biffa's Aldridge site would have another fire after the ban. Its workers would later find rechargeable vapes among devices arriving in the wrong waste stream. What joined these events was the journey from a hand to a bin, then into machinery.¹³⁴

A design that can be used again

The word reusable in the UK rule describes what a vape can do. Its battery can be recharged. Its liquid container can be filled again, or a pre-filled pod can be inserted. If a coil heats the liquid, the user must be able to replace that coil, sometimes by changing the pod that holds it. Refills and replacement coils are meant to be separately available. The conditions do not require the battery itself to be removable.²

Those design details serve a real purpose. A working device kept in service can avoid throwing away a whole battery unit each time its liquid runs out. Used pods, coils and batteries all enter the take-back duty, and a damaged or unwanted vape remains an electrical item. The UK ban covers sales, including vapes without nicotine. A different rule governs the used device and its parts.² Actual use, collection and recovery would have to be measured before anyone could claim a model delivers the resource benefit its reusable label suggests.

The difference became visible at Aldridge on 1 July. A second fire broke out at Biffa's material-recovery site, where mixed recycling is sorted. South Staffordshire Council reported that Biffa officials believed a vape battery had been put in a blue recycling bag and sparked the fire. This time, the site's fire-suppression system contained it quickly. Walter's later first-hand account describes a battery in cardboard waste but does not name the device it came from. Neither account identifies a rechargeable vape as the source of the fire.¹³

Why the bin changes the risk

A vape's battery may be small, but ordinary rubbish and mixed recycling put it through rough handling. Greater Manchester's fire service warns that a crushed or punctured vape battery can ignite in a collection lorry or at a waste centre. Inside the battery, a thin layer keeps two electrical sides apart. The US Department of Energy explains that damage can break that layer. The sides can then touch and heat the battery until it catches fire.⁵⁶

That mechanism explains the risk; it is not a forensic finding about the July Aldridge fire. The source of that fire remains qualified in the two accounts. The January fire, which Walter attributes to a vape, shows the physical damage possible at one facility. It took place before the sales ban, so it cannot show that a legally reusable replacement caught fire. The point is narrower and more useful: changing a product's permitted design does not remove the fire pathway when any battery-containing vape reaches a crushing waste stream.¹³⁵

Biffa then looked at what was still arriving. Across April and May, before the ban, the company counted 401,000 wrongly binned vapes at four of its busiest recycling sites. Across August and September, after the ban, it counted 447,000 at those sites. During a separate two-shift spot check at Aldridge, Biffa says 78% of the misplaced vapes found were rechargeable. Biffa gave the share without saying how many vapes workers checked. This is a view of selected sites and two shifts at Aldridge, useful for seeing the remaining disposal route but too narrow to serve as a UK rate.⁴

The route that avoids the sorting machine

In March 2026, the UK's Office for Product Safety and Standards set out a route for spent vapes. Store a device safely until collection, then use a shop's take-back service or a dedicated vape bin. Keep it out of household rubbish and recycling. Remove the battery only if the product allows it. This route keeps the battery away from machinery that might crush it among other waste.⁷⁵

There is a practical obligation behind that advice. UK shops that sell vapes must accept returned devices and parts, including used pods, coils and batteries, for recycling. The duty also covers old single-use models returned after the ban. Recycle Your Electricals advises taking the whole device to electrical collection if its battery cannot safely be removed. A battery that comes out safely should go through its own collection route. Some councils collect electrical devices separately or by special arrangement. South Staffordshire's separate kerbside bag, for example, is a local instruction rather than a rule for every UK street.²⁸³

Collection keeps a battery from being hidden in ordinary waste. The return point solves the immediate bin problem. A better complex electronic product would stay useful through replaceable worn parts. Its materials would separate for full recovery at the end. For a complex product, the better design goal is repair first, then full recycling after its materials are separated. That is a design goal, not a claim that the vapes in these sources achieve it. Batteries need safe handling. Reliable refills, price and access to a take-back point also affect whether someone can keep one device in service and return it properly.²⁷⁸

For someone who already uses a vape, the choice comes at two moments. While a sound device still works, compatible refills can spare the whole battery unit from early disposal. When it is spent, the device and its parts belong with a vape seller or dedicated collection point. That prevents waste and fire risk; it is not a reason to start vaping or a promise of full recycling. Back at Aldridge, the part of the story a shopper can change is simple: the battery never has to enter the blue recycling bag.²³⁷