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Fire Hazard - Batteries in Waste Paper Require Firefighting

Singing greetings cards, heated gloves, shoes with light-up soles - battery-powered objects are becoming increasingly common in our daily life. But even electrical devices such as laptops, mobile phones and tablets, which have long become an integral part of everyday life, need powerful batteries for mobile use without a power socket. Today, such electrical appliances are part of our everyday lives and we cannot imagine life without them. This is why it is all the more important to dispose of batteries and rechargeable batteries in the correct way, as they are a potential fire hazard.

6. August 2024  von Samantha Lang
  •                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Quelle: Guhr

A local waste management company in Obernheim-Kirchenarnbach experienced this on the last Tuesday in July during waste paper collection. The attentive employees of the waste management company noticed smoke in the truck and immediately called the fire brigade. All the contents had to be dumped at the local sports ground and carefully checked by the fire brigade. Fortunately, there was no fire and no persons were injured in this case. There is no telling what might have happened if the truck had caught fire in the village or later on the company premises. Device batteries /rechargeable batteries that had been carelessly disposed of in the paper bin and were found in the truck's wreckage most likely caused the smoke.

Used or damaged device batteries are hazardous waste and should not be disposed of in your household waste, yellow bag, biodegradable waste or paper bin, or carelessly disposed of in the environment. High-energy lithium-ion batteries in particular can easily catch fire due to mechanical damage or thermal effects (heat/cold). For this reason, device batteries are treated as hazardous substances and the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol on the batteries indicates that they do not belong in household waste. They must be collected separately. This helps to prevent pollutants from spreading and possible fires. At the same time, valuable raw materials are recycled.

And it is easy to dispose of old device batteries correctly and in an environmentally friendly way. Any point of sale that sells portable batteries must set up a take-back facility and take back old batteries free of charge, without any obligation to buy new ones. The take-back facilities must be marked accordingly. There is usually a container/box available for this purpose.

Used batteries can also be disposed of free of charge at your local recycling center or via the hazardous waste mobile. The exact locations of the recycling centers and the schedule for the hazardous waste mobile are published on the district’s homepage and in the waste app.

By the way: Not every household appliance, such as a vacuum cleaner, needs to be battery-operated if there is a socket nearby, and mechanical pepper and salt mills work without batteries.