Lithium-ion batteries are a major fire threat — here’s why and what consumers can do

From Texas Public Radio:

A September 2023 fire at a San Antonio metal recycling plant sent smoke and a foul smell billowing into the air that forced many nearby residents out of their homes.

It was started by a lithium-ion battery that shouldn’t have been there.

Lithium-ion batteries are proliferating, but public knowledge about how and why to properly dispose of them has not caught up — putting the public and the people along the waste and recycling chain in danger.

Monterrey Metal Recycling Solutions CEO Jordan Vexler recently walked along a path between 15 foot high piles of metal parts and scraps inside her recycling plant’s 30 acre footprint.

Trucks haul in and out the equivalent of five individual Tower of the Americas in weight, she said.

Despite screening through those masses of metal, a lithium-ion battery got into Monterrey Metal Recycling Solutions in 2023 and sparked a massive fire.

“There’s nothing you can do to put out a lithium ion battery fire,” Vexler said. “So just fact, regardless of where it is, it has to extinguish itself. And by extinguish itself, I mean it needs to consume all of the flammable substances available to it for it to not reignite.”

The city said Monterrey didn’t violate any city ordinance.

The company has enhanced its screening and fire suppression systems, but they are grappling with an issue plaguing recyclers and waste managers across the country.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that fires at waste management facilities jumped from 15 between 2013 and 2016 to 65 in 2020 alone.

Alexandra Gyarfas represents Balcones Recycling — which handles all of the City of San Antonio’s residential recycling

“When we talk about fires, we almost exclusively talk about lithium-ion batteries,” Gyarfas said. “I would say it’s one of the most common sources of fire.”

She estimated that there’s now one or two lithium-ion battery fires every day at recycling plants like hers across the country. Balcones Recycling has made major multi-million dollar investments at its recycling plants around the country to install new lithium-ion battery fire suppression systems. San Antonio’s Balcones facility was built with the costly system.

“Lithium-ion batteries are, I mean, I won’t be as dramatic as to say the most, but certainly one of the most dangerous items that you can put in the waste stream,” Gyarfas said. “And they are not slowing down.”

The global lithium-ion battery market has grown to be worth tens of billions of dollars over the last few decades, and fires are becoming more common as the batteries flood the market. The major problem with these batteries is the chemistry found inside them.

Gordon Lohmeyer is the Assistant Agency Director for the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, which offers fire training. He said when the batteries are damaged and combust, they release cancer-causing heavy metals like lead, nickel, and chromium.

“You’re looking at 75 semi volatile organic compounds that are flammable, explosive and toxic,” he said.

And the threat of fires goes beyond recyclers and waste management plants to homes and other businesses. The New York City Fire Department found the problem has grown in recent years.

The department recorded 40 or fewer lithium-ion battery fires six years ago. Lohmeyer said that figure has exploded.

“In 2021, there was 104 lithium-ion battery fires that resulted in four fatalities,” he said. “In 2022, there were 220 lithium-ion battery fires resulting in 10 fatalities. In 2023, there were 270 lithium-ion battery fires injuring 150 people, resulting in 18 fatalities.”

And that’s just New York City — Lohmeyer said experts don’t know exactly how many of these fires are happening around the country and how many are a result of improper disposal.

“How many cell phone fires or laptop computer fires related to lithium-ion batteries going into thermal runaway per day are there in the U.S.?” he said. “That’s a great question, because I don’t think that we’re capturing or collecting that data.”

But he and Gyarfas agreed that lack of public education about how to dispose of the batteries is a major reason they keep happening.

“And if we don’t make it easy for the consumer to recycle these batteries, I’m afraid these batteries, they end up in the household waste stream,” Lohmeyer said. “So that’s where we see these fires on the collection trucks at the sorting facilities.”

In San Antonio, people can use Call2Recycle drop boxes at The Home Depot and Lowe’s stores around the city.

They can also use the city’s Household Hazardous Waste Drop-Off Center on Culebra or its monthly drop-off events.

The EPA is scheduled to propose a new rule in June that will promote lithium-ion battery recycling to keep them out of the waste stream.

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