Council is reminding residents and businesses to use, store and dispose of batteries safely to help combat a nationwide surge in house, rubbish truck and waste facility fires.
The Canberra Region Joint Organisation (CRJO) has launched their latest battery safety campaign Don't Bin Batteries: It only takes one battery to spark a fire to raise awareness about the risks of throwing their batteries out in the bin.
Battery fires are becoming an increasing concern in Australia, with incidents rising significantly in recent years. Batteries disposed of in household red and yellow bins are believed to have caused the fire which destroyed Canberra's recycling plant on Boxing Day 2022, according to an investigation conducted by ACT Fire & Rescue.
The ACT Fire & Rescue report found that the suspected cause of the fire was lithium batteries. Lithium is found in many household batteries such as non-rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, and in a wide range of common devices, including laptops, mobile phones, and cameras to name a few.
Lithium is an extremely volatile element that reacts violently when exposed to oxygen, and these increasingly common batteries need to be handled even more carefully to prevent deadly and costly fires at home, at waste facilities, and in our rubbish trucks.
It's easy to do the right thing when it's time to dispose of household batteries. In the Snowy Monaro, your used batteries can be dropped off – for free – at many local shops, Council's Community Recycling Centres, and a number of other Council facilities.
Visit our website at https://qrco.de/trickywaste to see the full list of battery drop-off locations across the region.
Batteries contain valuable materials such as lithium, nickel and zinc, which can be recovered and reused in new products multiple times when they're disposed of correctly. Currently the national recycling rate of household batteries is estimated at 15%.
So please, don't bin batteries. Help keep our region safe from battery fires.
