Bigger nitrous oxide canisters fuel waste-truck blasts (Full Transcript)

[00:00:03] Speaker 1: There's small explosions in the back of refuse vehicles. This is incredibly frightening for our employees.

[00:00:10] Speaker 2: Some of our sites are seeing upwards of 2,000 explosions, which we weren't seeing before.

[00:00:15] Speaker 3: Zeeshan is a former nitrous oxide user who's worried about continued use.

[00:00:20] Speaker 4: You see cylinders and tanks all over the streets. I walk down the road and I see very young people like 14, 15, 16 using it and that's not good.

[00:00:31] Speaker 3: It's a class C drug, making possession and sale for recreational purposes a criminal offence. The government says overall use has fallen, but some users have turned to larger canisters, which is a big problem for the waste industry.

[00:00:46] Speaker 2: Small canisters, although they were a problem, they were less of a problem because obviously less amount of gas, less volume in them. Now we've gone to the bigger canisters, obviously there's a lot more gas in there, a lot more material to rupture, so it does cause a lot more damage.

[00:00:59] Speaker 1: We estimate since 2023 the damage to be in the region is about £7.5 million.

[00:01:05] Speaker 3: The government says suppliers have a clear legal duty to ensure products are not sold for recreational use.