On Wednesday I linked to a post at Commander Zero's place, discussing the safe disposal of used bear spray canisters. In my own post, I said:
According to one garbage disposal company in Tennessee whom I had dealings with over another matter, one of the biggest problems is that fires sometimes start in garbage dumps - quite spontaneously, due to sunlight reflected and concentrated through a piece of broken glass, or chemicals mixing and combusting, or old ashes that were not completely extinguished causing a delayed fire reaction. If a partially filled spray can of almost anything is too near those fires, it can (and occasionally does) explode. Complications ensue, particularly if that makes the fire worse.
As if to echo my words, I came across this article at Ars Technica.
2024 was "a year of growth," according to fire-suppression company Fire Rover, but that's not an entirely good thing.
The company ... releases annual reports on waste and recycling facility fires in the US and Canada to select industry and media. In 2024, Fire Rover, based on its fire identifications, saw 2,910 incidents, a 60 percent increase from the 1,809 in 2023, and more than double the 1,409 fires confirmed in 2022.
Publicly reported fire incidents at waste and recycling facilities also hit 398, a new high since Fire Rover began compiling its report eight years ago, when that number was closer to 275.
Lots of things could cause fires in the waste stream, long before lithium-ion batteries became common: "Fireworks, pool chemicals, hot (barbecue) briquettes," writes Ryan Fogelman, partner and vice president of early fire protection in Fire Rover, in an email to Ars. But lithium-ion batteries pose a growing problem, as the number of devices with batteries increases, consumer education and disposal choices remain limited, and batteries remain a very easy-to-miss, troublesome occupant of the waste stream.
All batteries that make it into waste streams are potentially hazardous, as they have so many ways of being set off: puncturing, vibration, overheating, short-circuiting, crushing, internal cell failure, overcharging, or inherent manufacturing flaws, among others. Fire Rover's report notes that the media often portrays batteries as "spontaneously" catching fire. In reality, the very nature of waste handling makes it almost impossible to ensure that no battery will face hazards in handling, the report notes. Tiny batteries can be packed into the most disposable of items—even paper marketing materials handed out at conferences.
Fogelman estimates, based on his experience and some assumptions, that about half of the fires he's tracking originate with batteries. Roughly $2.5 billion of loss to facilities and infrastructure came from fires last year, divided between traditional hazards and batteries, he writes.
There's more at the link.
Two and a half billion dollars of loss incurred in just one year due to fires at waste disposal and reprocessing facilities? That's a very big expense to bear . . . and is undoubtedly one of the reasons waste disposal fees are getting steadily higher.
Intrigued, I called our local garbage dump, which caters for waste from several nearby towns and cities in addition to our own. The person on the other end sighed a long-suffering sigh, and said that they expect at least one fire every week at the dump, and frequently get two, three or more over the same period. He agreed with Ars Technica's thesis that lithium batteries probably cause a good half of those fires, with the rest caused by other dangerous waste. He was a little heated when discussing people who throw away half-filled paint cans, bottles of chemical solvents, etc. inside garbage bags containing standard household waste, where they can't be easily identified before being crushed or otherwise damaged during the handling process. They burn very well, apparently! The company has to provide special training (and ongoing refresher training) to its staff to help them cope with the problem, because unexpected combustion can present a serious hazard to their health.
Perhaps we (including me!) should think more about what we're throwing away before we casually toss such garbage into our bins. I know I've been guilty of some of the things he complained about. I'll try to do better in future.
Peter