Auckland Council's sounding the alarm over a spike in rubbish-truck fires this month. 

It says more and more risky batteries and battery-powered devices are being illegally dumped in bins. 

In December alone, nearly 600 laptops and more than 300 12-volt batteries ended up in Auckland’s regional recycling facility. 

Parul Sood, Auckland Council’s Deputy Director of Resilience and Infrastructure, told Andrew Dickens that the council website has a list of places you can take e-waste, and many retailers actually offer to take it back for free. 

She says it’s a community responsibility to do the right thing, so people just need to spend a little more time thinking before automatically tossing something in the rubbish bin. 

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