The fire occurred last Wednesday in one of Halton Borough Council’s bin lorries and is believed to have been caused by a discarded vape or e-cigarette that was crushed.

Following the incident, the council issued a statement on Facebook alerting members of the community to ‘ongoing disruptions to scheduled waste collections’, both due to the icy weather conditions and the vehicle blaze.

In the statement from a council spokesperson, residents were asked to ‘please recycle vapes, e-cigs and batteries separately at a Recycling Centre’.

The statement added: ‘Please DO NOT submit a missed collection report for a whole street until 2 working days after your scheduled collection.

‘We are aware and trying our best to return. Thank you for your cooperation and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause.’

The council has since confirmed that crews are striving to complete all missed collections by tomorrow, with normal services planned to resume by January 19.

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