Never bin batteries! Residents urged to recycle batteries safely to prevent fires in waste facilities

Following a series of fires, residents across West Northamptonshire are being urged to help reduce risk to lives by disposing of batteries safely.

People are being urged to ensure that they only recycle batteries using specialist recycling services to help tackle the cause of fires happening in refuse collection vehicles and waste facilities.

Household batteries that are being thrown away in rubbish and recycling bins have caused a number of incidents, including a container at a local Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) to catch fire. West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has issued a warning that there is a serious risk of fires happening in both homes and HWRCs if batteries aren’t disposed of properly.

There are three simple ways residents can reduce the risk of fires:

Never put any kind of battery into your wheeled bins
Use the Council’s separate battery recycling collection, take batteries to supermarkets, or to a HWRC (please let staff know of any batteries when you arrive)
Remove all batteries from old electrical or battery powered items before recycling electricals using the separate small electrical recycling collections. If you can’t remove the battery out of an item, if it fits in a carrier bag – this can go with the separate electrical recycling collection, if it is too big – please take this to your nearest HWRC.

Domestic batteries can be put into a small plastic bag and tied to the handle of your wheeled bin for safe collection and recycling.

Please put them on the following bins:

Blue lid recycling bin in Northampton
Black lid general waste bin in Daventry
Either bin in South Northamptonshire

To find out more details of where you can recycle household batteries visit: www.westnorthants.gov.uk/batteries