By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• Insurance warning: Zurich says fires involving vapes, chargers and batteries continue to rise despite the U.K.’s disposable vape ban.
• Waste challenge: More than 6 million vapes and pods are still discarded weekly, creating ongoing fire risks in waste and recycling facilities.
• Regulatory focus: Battery safety and product stewardship are becoming important alongside youth access and public health concerns.

The U.K.’s disposable-vape ban may have reduced sales of single-use devices, but it has not stopped a growing fire-safety problem linked to vaping products.

According to insurer Zurich, fires involving e-cigarettes and their chargers or batteries continue to rise despite the country’s ban on disposable vapes, underscoring ongoing concerns about lithium-ion battery safety and disposal. The warning comes nearly a year after the U.K. banned the sale of disposable vaping products in June 2025 as part of broader efforts to address youth vaping and environmental waste.

Zurich said lithium-ion batteries in vaping devices remain a significant fire risk when products are improperly charged, stored, or discarded. The insurer’s concerns mirror findings from waste-management companies and recycling operators, which continue to report fires caused by discarded vaping products entering household waste and recycling streams.

Research from Material Focus found that more than 6.3 million vapes and vape pods were still being discarded each week in 2025, despite the disposable vape ban. Although that marked a 23% decline from the previous year, the volume remains substantial.

The issue centers on lithium-ion batteries used to power vaping devices.

When damaged during collection, transportation, or processing, the batteries can ignite and cause fires in waste trucks, recycling centers, and disposal facilities. At the waste-management company Suez, 368 fires in 2025 were confirmed to have been caused by batteries or vaping devices, while another 176 incidents were suspected to be battery-related.

“Vapes were suspected as the cause of over 80% of the reported fires across our sites last year,” said Dr. Adam Read, chief sustainability and external affairs officer for Suez, one of the United Kingdom’s largest waste-management companies. “With more than 6 million vapes still thrown away every week, it is clear that the perception on these items remains that they are a throwaway item.”

Suez reported 670 fires across its U.K. facilities last year, underscoring the scale of the problem facing recycling operators.

Industry observers note that although disposable devices have disappeared from store shelves, the market has increasingly shifted toward rechargeable and higher-capacity products that often contain larger lithium-ion batteries.

“We are seeing a change in the size of the vapes being thrown away,” said Steve Daniels, operations manager for Suez. “We used to see smaller vapes, like the 600-puff ones, but now it’s the larger, rechargeable types — and they have bigger batteries.”

Material Focus estimates that more than 1 billion vaping devices have been discarded in the U.K. over the past four years. The organization also reports that nearly half of consumers are unaware that vaping products can be recycled.

The broader battery issue extends well beyond vaping. Data collected from U.K. fire brigades showed that emergency services responded to approximately 1,760 lithium-ion battery fires in 2025, roughly one every five hours. Vapes, e-bikes, and e-scooters were among the products most frequently linked to incidents.

The growing number of fires is prompting calls for stronger producer-responsibility requirements and improved consumer education.

The U.K. already requires vape retailers to provide take-back and recycling services, with more than 10,500 collection points reportedly operating nationwide. However, waste operators argue that consumer participation remains too low to significantly reduce the problem.