Vapes in waste: 4.3 million e-cigarettes a year may end up in Hungarian bins – what MiReHu’s own count revealed

Vapes in waste are now one of the most dangerous, yet least visible problems in waste management. At the ENVIRONTEC powered by ÖKOINDUSTRIA trade fair (HUNGEXPO, Budapest, 7–9 October 2026) I gave a talk titled “Fire risk in waste management – or playing with fire” about where fires in waste facilities and collection trucks come from, what we see in the day-to-day operation of MiReHu Nonprofit Ltd., and what can be done about it.

The most important new element of the talk was our own measurement: on our sorting lines, we counted by hand how many discarded e-cigarettes turn up in two different waste streams. This article explains, in plain terms, what we found and what it means for the whole country.

In short: MiReHu’s 2026 sorting-line count found an average of 0.6 discarded vapes in every tonne of mixed municipal waste and 1.8 in every tonne of separately collected packaging waste, which means roughly five lithium-battery e-cigarettes ride along in every collection truck load. Projected onto Hungary’s 2024 national collection volumes, that means around 4.3 million vapes in waste every year – each one a potential source of fire.

3:45 a.m., Hejőpapi

The talk opened with a photo that was not made by artificial intelligence: at 3:45 a.m. on 6 March 2022, part of our site in Hejőpapi was in flames. The CCTV footage from minutes later shows how fast fire spreads at an hour when no one is working on site. That incident started with self-ignition, but it illustrates what every waste management company knows: fire is not a rare accident, it is a permanent operating risk.

Where can a fire start? Almost anywhere along the path waste travels: in homes, in bins and containers, in collection trucks, in sorting plants, in pre-treatment facilities and on landfills.

What has changed in recent years?

Our world has become mobile and “smart”. Almost every device we own runs on a battery: phones, earbuds, smartwatches, power banks, laptops, remote-control toys, VR headsets – and disposable e-cigarettes. Many of them end up not in the right collection point but in the mixed or recycling bin, where compaction, loading and shredding damage them mechanically.

How quickly this leads to fire is shown in a live experiment by the Austrian Federal Fire Brigade Association, filmed by Saubermacher Dienstleistungs AG: after mechanical damage, a disposable e-cigarette, a power bank or a musical greeting card starts sparking, smoking and burning within seconds. We have covered this in detail in our article on why anything that plays music or flashes must always be collected separately.

The international figures speak for themselves:

• United States and Canada: according to Fire Rover’s tracking, there were 448 publicly reported fires at waste and recycling facilities in 2025, the worst year since records began in 2016, with damage exceeding $2.5 billion.
• United Kingdom: in the year to March 2026, waste operators reported 1,518 fires, at least 541 of them linked to lithium-ion batteries, plus a further 216 battery fires in collection vehicles. We covered the UK situation in detail here.
• Germany: according to a joint position paper of European industry associations, waste collection trucks alone may see up to 30 fires a day, most of them caused by lithium batteries.
• Austria: an estimated 180–240 battery-related fires occur in waste management every year.
• France: the number of lithium-battery-related fires at waste facilities doubled between 2019 and 2023.

More and more cases are coming to light in Hungary, too. Data compiled from the Event Map of the National Directorate General for Disaster Management (Ministry of the Interior) show that between April and September in 2025 and 2026, there were typically between one and seven fires a month at waste treatment facilities – 36 incidents were identified in total across the two periods.

Vapes in waste: what did MiReHu’s own count show?

Among all sources of fire, the newest and fastest-growing is the disposable e-cigarette. So in 2026 MiReHu ran its own test: on our sorting lines, we counted by hand every vape pulled out of two separate waste streams.

Two waste streams, two results

• Mixed municipal waste: 894 vapes in 1,445 tonnes of waste over 7 sorting days. That is an average of 0.6 per tonne.
• Separately collected mixed packaging waste: 1,158 vapes in 649 tonnes of waste over 5 sorting days. That is an average of 1.8 per tonne.

On a daily basis, this means sorters had to pick out around 128 e-cigarettes by hand on the mixed-waste line and around 230 on the packaging line – every single day.

Why nearly three times more in the recycling bin?

Packaging waste contained almost three times as many vapes per tonne as mixed waste. There are two likely reasons. First, packaging waste is much lighter, so the same number of items is spread over less weight. Second, and more importantly, many people think of an empty e-cigarette as plastic waste and put it in the yellow recycling bin with good intentions. But a vape is electronic waste with a lithium battery inside – it can start a fire in the recycling bin just as easily as in the mixed bin, and in the sorting plant it ends up right next to the workers’ hands.

Close to five in every collection truck

A per-tonne figure is abstract; per truck, it becomes tangible. A truck collecting mixed waste carries an average of 7.5 tonnes, and one collecting packaging waste an average of 2.6 tonnes. In both cases the result is the same: close to five vapes ride under the compactor plate in every collection truck load. A single damaged battery is enough to set the load on fire.

National projection: 4.3 million e-cigarettes a year

Applying the measured rates to Hungary’s 2024 national collection volumes gives the following order of magnitude:

• around 1.47 million vapes in the 2,372,000 tonnes of mixed municipal waste collected,
• around 2.83 million vapes in the 1,585,000 tonnes of mixed packaging waste collected.

Together that is roughly 4.3 million e-cigarettes a year, or about 11,800 a day. By volume that is around 900 cubic metres – enough to fill roughly ten large articulated trucks. Every one of them carries a small lithium battery, and every one is a potential ignition source during collection and treatment.

It is important to stress that this is a projection, not a national measurement. Consumption habits vary by region, so the real national figure may be lower or higher. But the order of magnitude is clear, and it justifies treating the problem at national level.

What does Leoben’s “8 per tonne” mean?

A 2026 study by Montanuniversität Leoben in Austria found that one tonne of mixed waste today contains more than eight lithium cells or batteries – four times as many as ten years ago. For an average 8.5-tonne truck load, that is around 68 items. The key difference is that the Leoben figure covers all types of lithium power sources (toothbrushes, toys, earbuds, e-cigarettes), whereas our count covered vapes only. The two numbers measure different things, but together they show the proportions: e-cigarettes are just one – albeit fast-growing – part of the lithium devices found in mixed waste.

Limitations of the count

Hand sorting can only pick out devices that are visible and recognisable. Anything left inside bags, boxes or compacted waste can slip through. We therefore regard the measured values as a cautious, lower-bound estimate.

Five fire sources we have dealt with in practice

Vapes are only one cause. In the talk I presented five types of incidents we have experienced in our own operations:

1. Self-ignition. This phenomenon has long been part of life for waste management companies: processes inside the waste generate heat, and if the heat cannot escape, the pile eventually bursts into flame. The early-morning fire at Hejőpapi most likely started this way.
2. Chemicals. On one occasion, chemicals left over from a school chemistry storeroom were poured into a packaging waste bin, and they caught fire inside the collection vehicle.
3. Ash. Ash that has not fully cooled, often put out in large quantities, starts to smoulder when mixed with other waste and sets the load on fire. Firefighters then have to put out the truck at the roadside.
4. Foam, the landfill killer. It arrives with bulky waste and must be buried immediately. Self-ignition occurs when heat generation exceeds heat loss: the foam acts as insulation, traps heat from the surrounding waste, keeps warming up and eventually starts to smoulder.
5. Electrical devices. Electrical devices thrown out with municipal waste pose a huge risk because they are easily damaged mechanically – and the newest and most numerous group among them is the disposable vape.

Where regulation has fallen behind

There is no targeted regulation for e-cigarette waste. In Hungary, the sale of flavoured e-cigarettes is prohibited, yet the product – and therefore the waste it creates – is present. There is, however, no specific, targeted regulation for vapes once they become waste, while the lithium battery inside them poses a multi-layered risk that is hard to pin down: from physical and property damage through personal injury to air, soil and water pollution, and even the interruption of public waste services.

Treatment facilities are undersized from a fire-safety perspective. Unregulated new waste streams have since increased operating risks, but nobody wants to invest in a facility that is too expensive. On top of this, because of the high risk, it is becoming harder and harder to insure these facilities across Europe.

Landfill rules do not necessarily provide real protection. Whether a fire breaks out depends primarily on the quality of the deposited material; temperature is only a consequence. We need tangible, real solutions.

What can operators do when a fire breaks out?

The most important rule: be prepared to extinguish, and plan in advance for the possibility of fire.

• In treatment facilities: whether it is smouldering or burning, cut off the oxygen supply. For smaller smouldering fires, use machinery to move the waste to a safe area, pile it up and soak it thoroughly.
• On landfills: cut the burning area off from oxygen. If machinery can reach it, cover it with soil; if not, use a powder extinguisher. Once the oxygen supply is cut off, soak the smouldering area and keep a fire watch.

There is no shortage of technical solutions – automatic fire detectors (heat, smoke, aspirating and flame detectors), sprinkler systems, water mist, gas and foam extinguishing systems – but today there is no clear rule on which of them must be used.

Our own experience with thermal cameras is mixed but instructive. In our manual sorting plant we run a three-camera thermal imaging system with alarms: if waste starts to heat up and reaches the set threshold, the system sends alerts by e-mail, push notification and through the video management system, so staff can step in before ignition. On the landfill, however, a one-month test showed that the camera’s field of view was too narrow and that the system raised an alarm for every piece of black material warmed by the sun. The technology works – but not every site needs the same solution.

What do international examples suggest?

The United States has already acted. In September 2025, the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), the Recycled Materials Association (ReMA, formerly ISRI) and SWANA published a joint industry guide on lithium-ion battery management at materials recovery facilities. It is built on five steps:

1. Identification and screening: visual and technological screening must already be applied at the weighbridge and the tipping floor.
2. Proper handling: a battery that is found must not go onto the mechanical sorter; trained staff must remove it by hand.
3. Quarantine and storage: batteries must be stored away from the main building, in containers filled with sand or vermiculite.
4. Staff training: every employee must be able to recognise lithium-ion battery types and know the emergency protocols.
5. Compliant transport: collected batteries may only be taken away by licensed, specialist hazardous waste carriers.

Europe is calling for action, too. In May 2025, eight European associations – CEWEP, EPRO, EPSU, EuRIC, EXPRA, FEAD, FERVER and Municipal Waste Europe – issued a joint position paper urging the European Commission to act on lithium battery fires. Their proposals:

• Battery Fire Prevention and Recovery Fund: extended producer responsibility for batteries and devices with embedded batteries should be widened to cover fire prevention and the recovery of battery fire damage at waste facilities.
• Deposit return system: a deposit system should be introduced for portable lithium batteries, including those embedded in electronic devices and light means of transport.
• General ban: disposable battery-powered products – such as disposable e-cigarettes, textiles and shoes with unnecessary lights, and battery-powered gift cards – should be banned from the EU market.

EU environment ministers discussed the issue in December 2025, and the Commission announced that it would prioritise assessing a deposit return system for batteries. Meanwhile, member states are not waiting: in Spain, more than 600 kilograms of e-cigarettes were pulled out of the waste stream on the Costa del Sol in six months; and in Switzerland, SENS eRecycling data show that 72 per cent of disposable e-cigarettes sold are still disposed of incorrectly.

What can you do at home?

The cheapest fire protection starts in the household. A few simple rules:

• Never put a vape in the mixed bin or the yellow recycling bin. An e-cigarette is electronic waste, not plastic packaging.
• Take it to a recycling centre or an e-waste collection point. In Hungary, you can hand it in free of charge at MOHU recycling centres, at collection boxes in electronics stores, or at household collection days organised under MOHU’s new system.
• If it plays music, flashes or charges, it has a battery. Musical greeting cards, light-up children’s shoes, earbuds, toothbrushes – all must be collected separately.
• Tape over the terminals before handing in batteries, and never charge or keep using a swollen or damaged battery.
• Only put out ash once it has fully cooled, and never in large quantities in the bin.

Germany has reached the round table – and even that is not enough

A very recent development in Germany shows how far from uniquely Hungarian this problem is. On 6 October 2026, a round table organised by the German Federal Environment Ministry (BMUV) on measures against fires in waste management came to a close. Five leading industry associations – ASA, BDE, bvse, CMA and VKU – signed the final declaration, but jointly stressed that study mandates, awareness campaigns and further consultations are, on their own, not up to the scale and pace of the problem.

The plans set out in the final declaration include:

• examining the creation of a fire protection fund (Brandschutzfonds),
• a uniform collection group for battery-powered electrical devices at municipal recycling centres,
• pilot projects for collection close to households,
• improved retail take-back systems,
• and better information for consumers.

German associations see the cause just as clearly: lithium-ion batteries and battery-powered devices end up in residual waste, lightweight packaging or paper collection. The problem therefore starts outside the gates of treatment plants, at the collection stage. Plants may invest in detection and extinguishing equipment, structural fire protection and staff training, but these only help detect incidents that are already happening and limit the damage – they do not remove the root cause. Meanwhile, fire protection and insurance costs keep rising, and the insurability of facilities is under growing pressure.

The heads of the associations are therefore asking for much more than the final declaration offers:

• ASA (Katrin Büscher): technical retrofitting is not enough; a reliable legal framework is needed that distributes responsibility and risk fairly along the value chain.
• BDE (Andreas Bruckschen): called the outcome disappointing and urged economic incentives – deposit or cashback schemes – for the most problematic products.
• bvse (Eric Rehbock): collection vehicles and recycling plants catch fire every day, and in his view it is only a matter of time before the first serious injury or death.
• CMA (Guido Lipinski): warned about raw material security: those working for Europe’s raw material independence must be protected from the existential risks posed by wrongly discarded batteries.
• VKU (Uwe Feige): demands a ban on disposable e-cigarettes, following the example of France, Belgium and Austria.

The key question is cost. Today the burden of increased fire protection, the related organisational work and actual fire damage falls almost entirely on waste management companies. The German associations consider this untenable and want producers to be brought in on a mandatory basis through a dedicated fire protection fund. When the round table closed, they also handed the ministry a jointly commissioned study on trends in fire and hotspot incidents, their causes, economic damage and the impact on insurability, together with proposed solutions. It is due to be presented publicly at an online press conference on 14 October 2026. We covered the outcome of the German round table in detail here.

The German debate is instructive for us because it raises exactly the same questions Hungarian waste operators face: who pays for fire protection, how vapes and batteries can be filtered out before they ever reach the bin, and what happens to facilities that can barely be insured any more. In Germany, at least, these questions are now on the ministry’s table.

The bottom line

In waste management, fire is not the exception but a daily risk – and a growing share of that risk comes from small devices that people throw in the wrong bin, with good intentions or out of carelessness. Our own count shows that close to five e-cigarettes ride along in every collection truck, and that millions of them may end up in waste across the country every year. Waste operators cannot solve this alone: it takes targeted regulation, producer responsibility, working take-back systems and conscious cooperation from the public. Until then: vapes do not belong in the bin.

Vapes in waste – frequently asked questions

How many vapes end up in waste in Hungary each year?

Around 4.3 million a year, based on MiReHu’s own count. On our sorting lines we found an average of 0.6 discarded e-cigarettes per tonne of mixed municipal waste and 1.8 per tonne of separately collected packaging waste. Projected onto 2024 national collection volumes, that is about 1.47 million in mixed waste and 2.83 million in packaging waste. It is a projection, so regional figures may differ.

Why does a discarded vape catch fire in a collection truck?

Because its lithium battery short-circuits when it is mechanically damaged. During compaction, loading and shredding, the battery’s internal separator can be punctured, the temperature spikes within moments, and the cell starts sparking and then burning. The surrounding paper, cardboard and plastic waste then catches fire quickly, and the flames can spread through the entire load.

Why are there more vapes in packaging waste than in mixed waste?

Because many people think an empty e-cigarette is plastic waste and put it in the yellow recycling bin. In MiReHu’s count, packaging waste contained almost three times as many vapes per tonne as mixed waste. Packaging waste is also lighter, so the same number of items is spread over less weight. Per truck load, both streams carry close to five vapes.

Where should I take a used e-cigarette?

To a recycling centre or an e-waste collection point, because a vape is electronic waste. In Hungary you can hand it in free of charge at MOHU recycling centres, at collection boxes in electronics stores and at household collection days requested by municipalities. Never put it in the mixed or yellow bin, because its lithium battery can start a fire during collection and sorting.

What other fire sources exist in waste management?

Besides lithium batteries, the most common are self-ignition, chemicals, hot ash and foam. In MiReHu’s experience, leftover school laboratory chemicals ignited inside a collection vehicle, ash that had not cooled set a truck load on fire, and on the landfill, foam from bulky waste collection trapped heat until it started to smoulder.

Sources and references:

• Roland Ladányi: Fire risk in waste management – or playing with fire, talk at ENVIRONTEC powered by ÖKOINDUSTRIA, HUNGEXPO Budapest, 7–9 October 2026
• MiReHu Nonprofit Ltd.: in-house vape count during sorting of mixed municipal and mixed packaging waste, 2026
• National Directorate General for Disaster Management, Ministry of the Interior (Hungary) – Event Map
• Fire Rover / Ryan Fogelman: Waste & Recycling Facility Fires Report US/CAN, 2025 data
• Environmental Services Association (ESA), United Kingdom
• Montanuniversität Leoben: Battery Research on Market, Risk and Fire Statistics, 2026
• NWRA – ReMA – SWANA: Guide for Establishing Lithium-Ion Battery Management Practices at Materials Recovery Facilities, 11 September 2025
• CEWEP, EPRO, EPSU, EuRIC, EXPRA, FEAD, FERVER, Municipal Waste Europe: Battery Fires in Waste Management – joint position paper, May 2025
• FEAD statement following the EU Environment Council, 17 December 2025
• BDE press release on the close of the German round table (ASA, BDE, bvse, CMA, VKU), October 2026
• Saubermacher Dienstleistungs AG / Austrian Federal Fire Brigade Association: live experiment (video)