THIS is the frightening moment two bin men had a lucky escape – when an item left in a wheelie bin exploded in their lorry.
CCTV footage shows one refuse worker moving away from the lorry moments before debris is shot out across the road in Barnet, North London.
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The clip captured by a camera attached to the rear of the lorry shows a worker emptying a black bin into the vehicle.
Seconds later, as he starts wheeling the empty bin away, a huge explosion from inside the lorry fired rubbish across the street and sent smoke pouring into the air.
The explosion blasted the bin from the hands of the refuse worker, but luckily he and his colleagues escaped unharmed.
Barnet Council say the explosion was caused by a combustible item or items such as gas canisters or bottles, batteries or aerosol cans being wrongly placed into a residential bin.
When crushed by the lorry’s impactor, the item caused the bin and other debris to be fired out into the street.
Commenting on the video, Cllr Alan Schneiderman, the Barnet Council Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, admitted the refuse workers had been lucky to emerge unscathed.
He said: “The video is incredibly shocking, and we’re relieved that the crew members escaped unharmed.
“I hope this helps people to understand how important it is to properly recycle items such as gas canisters and bottles, batteries and aerosols, as on another day we might not have been so lucky.”
This incident follows another earlier this year in which a set of lithium batteries caught light and burned a hole in the side of a bin lorry in Barnet.
Combustible waste should never be placed in waste bins, and should instead be recycled at recycling centres, the council said.
In January this year, a woman was seriously injured after being mistakenly dumped in a bin lorry and compacted four times.
The woman was believed to have been inside a bin when it was picked up by a lorry, in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA, the fire brigade said.
She was dumped in the back of the vehicle and could be heard screaming as she was compacted several times.
To check how to safely recycle items and where your nearest centre is, you can visit the Recyclenow website.
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