Councils have warned residents of "serious ongoing health and safety concerns" amid households recklessly throwing away one flammable household item in their general waste, leading to several bin lorry fires.
Redcar and Cleveland Council have announced that these blazes have been caused by batteries being thrown out amongst other waste by careless homeowners, the Daily Record also reports.
The council has said that if these items are accidentally punctured by other waste, they can cause fires within the bin lorries.
A report released by cabinet members has said: "To date crews have managed to tip out the loads before any serious damage was caused to the vehicle or harm to members of staff.
“However this is still a serious ongoing health and safety concern.”
As a response to this, the local authority has located 12 recycling areas for small electrical items, including batteries.
Councillor Julie Craig, cabinet member for the highways and transport, has said that batteries were safely collected by refuse crews, but only if they were given separately to the general waste.
This news comes as West Lothian Council announced that households in the area generated more rubbish during the pandemic and pushed up costs by more than £1 million.
Future budget savings in waste and recycling will reduce the cost of the service, in particular, changes to the way blue bins, food and brown bins are collected and how their respective waste is treated.
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A spokesman for the council said: “Staff have worked extremely hard over the course of the pandemic to deliver a waste collection service.
"However, like many public sector organisations the council has faced increased demand for services due to the pandemic. The vast majority of the identified overspend can be related directly to issues brought on by the pandemic.
More people staying at home has resulted in an increase in the volume of waste being generated and collected over this period.
"An increase in the amount of waste being collected has a knock-on effect on the amount of money required to deliver the service.
"More waste being collected means increased costs for running vehicles, more staff being required to deliver the waste collection service and crucially, a significant increase in the amount it costs for waste disposal.”
