Fires caused by highly dangerous lithium-ion batteries are on the increase across New Zealand’s rubbish trucks, dumpsters and plants.

Blazes have become more common in recent times due to the sheer number of lithium-Ion batteries simply being discarded in household bins.

Many of the batteries contain hazardous metals which can have a harmful impact on the environment if disposed of improperly.

The batteries are extremely common in portable consumer electronics, providing power for smartphones, laptop computers, smartwatches and many other devices.

This year Christchurch and Marlborough residents were part of a successful pilot scheme to drop off all household used batteries at collection points across supermarkets, hardware stores and transfer stations and WasteMINZ is encouraging others to follow their lead.

To support the roll-out of further locations, aWasteMINZ lithium-ion battery working group hasdevelopeda how-to guide to help councils andretail stores across New Zealand understand what is needed to set up a similar service. It's hoped this will encouragegreaterrecovery of used batteries and the development of an interim solution for a safenationwide battery recycling programme, to meet the current needs of the consumer and waste collection industry ahead of the launch of a comprehensive e-waste scheme due in a couple of years.

The WasteMINZ lithium-ion battery working group cameabout throughconcerns from waste industry members around fire risks during the collection and processing of thesetypes ofbatteries.WasteMINZ is keen to encourage companies to not only look at offering a public collection point but also to establish their own in-house collection system for their staff and employees to use.

Appropriate training is provided and collection and processingarehandled by specialisedcontractors whoprovidethe collection, sorting andrecyclingofbatteries.

A wider Government regulated e-waste product stewardship scheme which will include lithium-ion batteries, is still in the design stage. It is being led by TechCollect NZ who are working with other stakeholders to design the scheme, which will come into effect at the earliest in 2024.

Currently New Zealand doesn’t have any recycling capability for batteries on-shore, some are exported overseas to Korea. That however may be about to change, Wellington company ITRecycla has invested in a processing plant for used drycell batteries, including lithium batteries which will have the capacity to process and recycle all of the countries used drycell batteries. In the meantime they are stockpiling them in a concrete bunker.

The company’s plant in Seaview will disaggregate the key materials from lithium-ion batteries and separate the highly dangerous paste which will then be dried, compressed & sent offshore to a refinery to recover elements such as cobalt, nickel & lithium. The other materials will be separated and recycled locally. The plant will also be able to process other battery types including single use alkaline batteries, with potential for the recovered materials to be used in applications as diverse as steel production or even fertilizer.

ITRecycla’s business development manager John Evans says ‘Normally lithium batteries are relatively safe, however if they are compromised or damaged they can become extremely volatile and dangerous. Any lithium battery from a cellphone, toy or even a discarded vape that finds its way into a refuse truck poses a real problem because they will ignite when they’re crushed and once a lithium fire starts you can’t put it out until it burns itself out.’

‘Covid-19 and difficulties with shipping the new machinery has delayed the start of the project but the company is confident the plant will be operational by early next year at the latest’ Evans said.

Meanwhile, in Christchurch, EcoSort manager Wayne Hocking from EcoCentral has seen first hand the damage a lithium-ion battery fire can cause.

‘It seems to happen when the trucks tip off their kerbside products on the floor and then when we go to lift it with the loader bucket it will hit a battery and then it just flares up.’

‘They can flare up quite dramatically, very fast, so we have had a lot of them on our receival floor where the product is and then we also have had them on the feed belts going through the plant, which is not ideal.’

‘It will catch the fibre products alight pretty fast; the fires can smoulder for a while. Hocking continues ‘We’ve had it where the plastic bottles have started burning, so we have to contain that area where the fire is and drag it to one side. Water is not the best thing to put them out however, we’ve got pretty good fire hoses here, after it’s out we have to keep that product aside and keep an eye on it for the rest of the day basically, they can flare up again.’

‘We had a major one where the guys were pulling the contamination off. I think we used 7 fire extinguishers in that room and unfortunately the product was still running at that point, luckily we managed to stop it going through the screen, one guy went away to hospital, but he was ok, the fire department had to walk through the plant with thermal cameras just trying to see any hotspots.’

Wayne Hocking says since the collection trial started in Christchurch, they have seen a drop off in problems. ‘We saw a decrease in fires from that, which was awesome.’

‘You just don’t know what people are putting in the kerbside unfortunately, it just comes and goes, I mean it could happen today we just don’t know.'

© Scoop Media