Lithium Batteries Are Setting Recycling Facilities on Fire. Could Detection Dogs Stop Them at the Gate?

A single small battery, hidden among tonnes of waste, can be enough to start a major fire.

For waste and recycling operators, this is no longer an occasional anomaly. Lithium-ion batteries discarded in the wrong waste stream have become one of the industry's most significant fire risks.

And the numbers are escalating rapidly.

In the United Kingdom alone, members of the Environment Services Association reported 1,518 fires at waste and recycling facilities in the year to March 2026. At least 541 were directly attributed to lithium-ion batteries, while another 216 battery fires occurred inside waste collection vehicles.

The industry estimates that battery-related fires now cost the UK approximately £1 billion every year.

The Environment Services Association says around 40% of recycling-centre fires are known to be caused by batteries, but believes the real proportion could be closer to 70%, because the origin of a major fire frequently disappears in the blaze itself.

Lithium batteries have effectively become a hidden hazard travelling through the waste-management system.

What if they could be detected before the truck unloads?

A problem becoming increasingly difficult to ignore

On August 28, 2026, major fires broke out at waste facilities in both Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

In Ecublens, near Lausanne, Switzerland, a fire at a recycling facility generated a large plume of smoke, disrupted transport and forced the closure of the A1 motorway.

On the same day in Neasden, London, around 125 firefighters and 20 fire engines responded to a major fire at a mixed-waste facility. Rail and Underground traffic was severely disrupted and a neighbouring Amazon facility was evacuated as a precaution.

The causes of these particular fires have not yet been established.

But they occurred against the background of a much broader and well-documented problem.

Only three weeks earlier, on August 7, the London Fire Brigade attended a recycling-site fire in Ilford. An industrial refuse compactor and approximately three tonnes of recycling material were destroyed.

The identified cause: a damaged lithium-ion battery in a refuse pile.

On July 18, approximately 80 tonnes of household waste caught fire at a recycling centre in Wimbledon Park. The London Fire Brigade identified a lithium-ion battery as the most probable cause.

Five days earlier, another fire at a waste-transfer facility in Southwark was attributed to the failure of a lithium-ion battery situated within the waste.

And in January, firefighters dealing with burning mixed recycling at a facility in Crayford again identified unsafe disposal of a lithium-ion battery as the most probable cause.

These are not isolated events.

They represent an increasingly systemic problem for the waste industry.

Why are batteries so dangerous inside the waste stream?

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere.

They power smartphones, laptops, power tools, toys, electric toothbrushes, headphones, power banks, electronic cigarettes and an ever-growing number of everyday products.

The problem begins when those batteries or devices containing them are thrown into conventional household, commercial or recyclable waste.

They can remain completely hidden.

During collection and processing, the waste is subsequently compressed, moved by mechanical grabbers, crushed, compacted or shredded.

A battery that is damaged or punctured can develop internal short circuits, rapidly increasing its temperature and potentially entering thermal runaway.

Lithium-ion battery fires can spread extremely rapidly when batteries are crushed or damaged.

In a recycling facility surrounded by tonnes of combustible material, one incorrectly discarded battery can therefore have consequences completely disproportionate to its size.

Fire-detection systems, thermal cameras and suppression equipment can mitigate the consequences.

But most of them address the problem after the hazardous battery has already entered the facility.

That raises a different question.

Can the battery be identified before the waste is unloaded?

Detection dogs already have the nose. The challenge is getting them safely to the target.

Dogs have an extraordinary capability to recognize highly specific odor signatures.

Specialist detection dogs are already trained to find electronic devices and batteries in security and law-enforcement applications.

That suggests an interesting possibility for the waste sector.

But simply asking a detection dog to search directly through mixed waste creates another problem.

Recycling waste can contain broken glass, sharp metal, chemicals, needles, unstable objects and numerous other physical hazards.

Putting a dog directly onto piles of waste is therefore neither scalable nor desirable.

The solution may be to separate the two operations.

The dog does not need to go to the waste. The odor can come to the dog.

Remote Air Sampling for Canine Olfaction

Getxent developed RASCO™, Remote Air Sampling for Canine Olfaction, to allow canine detection to be performed remotely.

Instead of bringing the dog into direct contact with the environment being screened, an operator collects an air sample from the target environment through a Getxent Tube.

Volatile compounds present in the sampled environment are collected by the Getxent material.

The tube can then be removed from the sampler and presented to a trained detection dog in a safe and controlled environment.

This approach already makes it possible to separate sampling from canine detection when screening environments such as vehicles, trucks, containers or rooms.

Applied to the waste industry, that distinction could be particularly important.

Screening a waste truck before unloading

Imagine a truck arriving at a recycling or waste-processing facility.

Today, in many facilities, the contents will ultimately be unloaded before anyone can know whether a small battery is hidden somewhere among several tonnes of material.

A remote canine screening process could introduce an additional checkpoint before that happens.

1. The truck arrives

The incoming vehicle remains intact in a designated screening area before unloading.

2. The load is remotely sampled

An operator uses the RASCO system to collect air from within the cargo volume onto a blank Getxent Tube.

The dog never needs to enter the truck or walk through the waste.

3. The Getxent Tube is presented to a detection dog

The collected sample is transferred to a controlled canine detection area.

The dog has been specifically trained to recognize the odor signature associated with the target batteries or battery-containing devices.

4. No indication: normal processing

If the dog does not detect the target odor, the vehicle proceeds according to the facility's normal process.

5. Positive indication: secondary inspection

If the dog indicates the presence of the target odor, the truck can be diverted before unloading into the main processing stream.

The facility can then apply whatever secondary inspection, segregation or risk-management procedure it has established.

The principle is simple:

Sample the truck. Screen the sample. Then decide where the truck goes.

Moving fire prevention upstream

This changes where the safety decision is made.

Without pre-screening, an incorrectly discarded battery may only become a problem once the waste has been unloaded—or worse, when it reaches a compactor, crusher or shredder.

By then, locating one battery among tonnes of material may be impossible.

Remote canine detection potentially moves that decision upstream, while the load is still contained within the vehicle.

It would not replace existing battery-collection systems, thermal monitoring, fire detection, suppression equipment, staff training or proper waste segregation.

Instead, it could provide an additional preventive layer before processing begins.

And unlike many fire-prevention technologies, its purpose would not be to recognize that a fire is beginning.

Its purpose would be to identify a potential source of the fire before ignition.

One battery can be enough

The scale of the problem justifies investigating new approaches.

• 1,518 fires were reported by major UK waste operators in the year to March 2026.
• At least 541 were directly linked to lithium-ion batteries.
• An additional 216 battery fires occurred in waste collection vehicles.
• The waste industry estimates that batteries may ultimately account for close to 70% of recycling-centre fires.
• The estimated financial impact in the UK alone has reached approximately £1 billion per year.

The waste industry has invested heavily in dealing with fires once they start.

The next opportunity may be to identify the hazard earlier.

Detection dogs offer remarkable olfactory sensitivity.

Remote air sampling offers a way to use that capability without exposing those dogs to a dangerous waste environment.

Together, they raise a simple but potentially important possibility:

Detect the battery before the truck unloads.

Getxent is interested in working with waste-management companies, recycling organisations, canine teams and research institutions to evaluate this application of RASCO™ under controlled and real-world operating conditions.

If your organisation is working on lithium-battery fire prevention in the waste industry, contact Getxent to discuss a potential collaboration.

Sources and further reading

• RTS — Fire at a recycling facility in Ecublens, Switzerland
• Sud Ouest — Major fire at a waste facility in South London
• The Guardian — Battery fires at recycling centres are costing the UK approximately £1 billion a year, August 2026.
• The Standard — Soaring number of fires at recycling centres blamed on vape and lithium-ion batteries, August 2026.
• London Fire Brigade — Recycling and waste-facility fire incident reports, 2026.
• CTV News — Improper battery disposal blamed for fire at Nova Scotia waste and recycling facility, July 2026.

Note: The causes of the August 28, 2026 fires in Ecublens and Neasden had not been established at the time of publication. They are cited as recent examples of the potential consequences of major waste-facility fires, not as confirmed lithium-battery incidents.