Blaze at plant halts electrical waste collections

A "significant" fire at a recycling plant means tips across Norfolk are not accepting any electrical waste until further notice.

Firefighters have been tackling a blaze at a Wiser electricals recycling warehouse in Thetford since Thursday evening, but the inferno has since been brought under control.

Norfolk County Council said recycling sites across the county have had to stop taking items such as fridges, TVs and batteries from residents, but hoped to accept them again next week.

Simon Mason, incident commander at Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service, said crews had been fighting a blaze among lithium-ion batteries, which were "inherently difficult" to deal with.

Twenty-seven appliances attended the scene at Brunel Way during the height of the fire, which broke out shortly after 19:00 BST on Thursday.

The fire service worked overnight with colleagues in Suffolk to tackle the flames, and have since scaled back the operation.

On social media, a spokesperson for Wiser said no injuries had been reported and the fire was "quickly brought under control".

It added: "Safety has always been our top priority. We are conducting a thorough assessment of the site and reviewing our processes to understand the cause and further strengthen our preventative measures.

"Operations continue across our other facilities, and we are working to minimise any disruption to our partners and customers."

Mason, from the fire service, described the blaze as "significant" and said it had "heavily damaged" the warehouse.

"The majority of the fire is the result of lithium-ion batteries," he said.

"Unfortunately it's one of those unavoidable risks where everyone has lithium-ion battery products at home. They've got to be recycled somewhere, it's just unfortunate the nature of those batteries can lead to what we have unfortunately seen today."

He added as batteries could be "inherently difficult" to deal with, crews would remain at the scene in case of any further flare-ups.

"The building is heavily damaged. It's a big open-plan warehouse with lots of different storage areas. Unfortunately, because of that open-plan nature, the fire is able to extend across the entire warehouse floor."

The county council said it was working closely with its contractor to assess the situation and restore services "as quickly as possible".

It hoped that electrical waste collections could resume by the middle of next week.

It has reminded people to never place electrical items or batteries in household waste bins, and asked people to safely store unwanted electricals at home until services resumed.

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