With three fires at recycling centres across the county this weekend, residents are being reminded to remove batteries from toys and keep gas lighters/flammable liquids out of their general waste.
Sarah Hoof, waste officer at Lincolnshire County Council, commented: "Now is the perfect time to have a post-Christmas sort out, but please, before you head to your local recycling centre, take a few minutes just to separate out all the batteries and fire lighting equipment.
"In the past few days we've had fires at Louth, Spalding and Sleaford. One of these was caused by old fire lighting equipment which had been put in a black bin bag in the general waste compactor. Luckily, we spotted it quickly and the fire was extinguished.
"If you have flammable liquid, lighters or gas please just let us know, we will put these in a separate area. Please also take a few minutes to take out batteries from games controllers, toys, TV remotes, mobile phones etc. We have a separate collection for these at all of our recycling centres. These are highly flammable if they end up in the compactors."