Battery fires cost EU waste sector €2.6bn in a single year

Battery fires drained more than €2.6 billion from the European waste sector in a single year, according to new figures from FEAD, the European Waste Management Association. The association counted roughly 10,900 battery fires across the EU's waste operations in 2025 — about 30 every day — and warns the real number runs higher, because the cause of many fires is never identified.

The damage toll compounds fast. Between 2023 and 2025, FEAD estimates battery fires caused around €7.3 billion in damage to the EU waste sector. Operators spent roughly €730 million upgrading facilities for fire prevention in 2025 alone, and about €2 billion across the three-year window. FEAD says those costs fall almost entirely on waste management companies, while insurance coverage for waste operations is becoming harder and more expensive to obtain.

Paolo Campanella, FEAD Secretary General, said: "Every day, waste workers extinguish fires caused by batteries that end up in the wrong waste stream." He added: "Waste operators are investing heavily in prevention, but they cannot carry this cost alone."

Where are the fires starting?

Batteries are now implicated at every stage of the waste value chain. FEAD's analysis records incidents in bin lorries, sorting plants and landfill, and across residual household waste, packaging, paper and cardboard, bulky waste, furniture, metals, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and landfill operations.

The national data sharpens the picture:

• Belgium: batteries are suspected in 75% of fires.
• Norway: batteries caused 76% of fires where the cause was known in 2025.
• Netherlands: around 40% of fires occur during waste collection.

Of an estimated 17,500 total fires in the EU's waste sector in 2025, roughly 10,900 were linked to batteries. FEAD stresses that this share is also probably higher in reality, since many fires are never traced to a cause.

What is FEAD asking policymakers to do?

The association has set out three demands for EU policymakers, each aimed at keeping batteries out of mixed streams or removing high-risk products altogether:

1. Set up a Battery Fire Prevention and Recovery Fund, financed through Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for batteries and electronic devices, to help waste operators invest in prevention and rebuild after fires.
2. Introduce a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for batteries likely to cause fires, improving separate collection and keeping batteries out of mixed municipal waste and other recycling streams.
3. Ban disposable products containing batteries, such as single-use vapes, which FEAD says create unnecessary fire risks at the end of their life.

What does this change for the waste sector?

For operators, the numbers reframe battery fires as a structural cost driver rather than an operational nuisance: €2.6 billion a year in damage, on top of €730 million in annual prevention spending and rising insurance premiums. The proposed Battery Fire Prevention and Recovery Fund would shift part of that burden onto battery and electronics producers through EPR financing, while a targeted deposit scheme would divert the most fire-prone batteries into separate collection before they reach sorting plants and landfill.

The next milestone is political. Whether Brussels takes up FEAD's three-point agenda — the EPR-financed fund, the battery deposit scheme and the disposable-battery product ban — will decide whether the €7.3 billion question of who pays for battery fires lands on producers or stays with the operators currently extinguishing 30 of them a day.