Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am writing to request information regarding incidents of fire at waste disposal facilities managed by your authority, where the reported or suspected ignition source was the improper disposal of vaping devices (e.g., vapes/e-cigarettes containing lithium-ion batteries).
Please provide the following information in relation to your Household Waste Recycling Centre(s) (HWRCs) and any other waste disposal or recycling facilities managed by your authority:
1. Total number of confirmed or suspected vape-related fire incidents at all facilities, from 1 January 2021 to the most recent date available.
2. For each year (calendar or financial year), a breakdown by facility of the number of vape-related fires reported.
Definitions and scope:
For clarity:
* “Vape” includes disposable and rechargeable e-cigarette devices, whether sold legally or otherwise, that contain lithium-ion batteries.
* “Vape-related fire incidents” include confirmed fires and incidents where a fire or ignition was suspected to have been caused by a vape or its battery during or following disposal.
Please provide the information in an electronic format where possible (e.g., Excel, CSV, PDF).
Response
Further to our email acknowledging your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, our response is as follows.
You requested:
1. Total number of confirmed or suspected vape-related fire incidents at all facilities, from 1 January 2021 to the most recent date available.
2. For each year (calendar or financial year), a breakdown by facility of the number of vape-related fires reported.
Our response: We can confirm that the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) holds information regarding fire incidents at our facilities. However, we do not hold data in a format that isolates fire incidents specifically attributed to vapes or vape-related lithium-ion batteries for the years 2021 through 2024.
2025 – 2026 Data: For the 2025 calendar year, we can confirm there were 3 incidents where the suspected cause was recorded as vape-related.
Refusal Notice: Section 12 (Cost Limit) and Section 1(4) Regarding your request for a breakdown from 2021 to 2024, the Authority does not hold a pre-existing dataset that categorises fires by this specific ignition source.
To generate these specific statistics, the Authority would be required to retrospectively review and manually investigate individual fire logs over a four-year period to determine if a vape was involved in each instance. Under Section 1(4) of the FOIA and related ICO guidance, public authorities are not required to create new information or conduct bespoke analysis of raw records to fulfill a request.
Furthermore, we estimate that the time required to locate, retrieve, and extract this data would exceed the appropriate cost limit of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours of work) as defined under Section 12 of the FOIA. Therefore, we are unable to provide the historical breakdown requested.
Internal Review Procedure: If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you may ask for an internal review, which should be submitted within two months of when you received our response to either informationrequests@nlwa.gov.uk or via our enquiry form quoting the reference above.
If you are not content with the outcome of the review, you may complain to the Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Kind regards,
North London Waste Authority
