The waste and recycling industry says it's fighting up to 12,000 fires a year caused by discarded lithium-ion batteries and has warned that consumers will ultimately pay for the crisis without change.
State and territory Environment Ministers will meet with federal counterpart Tanya Plibersek on Friday to discuss better battery management.
Ahead of the meeting, the waste and recycling sector has issued an urgent call for more safe drop-off points for batteries — which cannot be safely managed in general waste streams.
Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association chief executive Gayle Sloan, representing more than 400 businesses, said the stakes are high.
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A report from Pragmatic Research, funded by waste and recycling bodies, estimated there are between 10,000 and 12,000 battery-related fires in the sector per year. The ACT lost its recycling facility to a battery-related fire in 2022.
"If we don't act on this, we're going to continue to see facilities and trucks burn, we're going to end up potentially with genuine injuries or significant injuries on our workers, and, dare I say, a death, which is what we're trying to avoid," Ms Sloan told 7.30.
"We're going to find that we have services disrupted or unaffordable because that cost of insurance needs to be transferred over.
"We're not going to find people having their materials and rubbish collected when they want it to, because the services will become unaffordable."
There is a national battery recycling scheme – B-Cycle – but it does not yet accept all types of batteries, including items with embedded batteries like vapes, digital pregnancy tests and flashing concert wristbands.
Ms Sloan said the scheme should expand "as a matter of urgency".
"In the interim, we need governments in each state to fund collection points to take them now out of our stream, because there's no point telling consumers don't put it in the bin if you can't tell them where to put them," she said.
Veolia chief executive Richard Kirkman said he received calls "once or twice a week" about battery fires in the waste giant's trucks or facilities.
"Most of the time we're getting that fire out, but every couple of weeks, we're losing a truck or we're having a serious fire, which is costing us money or a facility," he said.
7.30 approached Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek for comment and received a statement from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water in response.
A spokesman said: "Environment ministers will be briefed by the Queensland government on work Queensland is leading with jurisdictions and industry stakeholders to inform a national, coordinated approach to safe collection and management of batteries.
"This work will help address fire and safety risks, and keep the valuable materials batteries contain within our circular economy."
'Toxic and explosive'
Lithium-ion batteries are increasingly common, in part because they can hold a lot of energy.
CSIRO principal research scientist Dr Adam Best said it was this property that meant they were more prone to a strong reaction when things went wrong.
"When those batteries are either in a fault or they've been abused or damaged, we can release that electrical energy as chemical energy, so what we see is fire and potentially explosion," Dr Best told 7.30.
State fire departments had earlier this year told 7.30 that in the previous calendar year they were called to a combined total of more than 1,000 fires linked to lithium-ion batteries.
In NSW, there was a 66 per cent increase in battery-related fires over the past year, according to Fire and Rescue NSW Deputy Commissioner Paul McGuiggan.
He says blazes were more commonly linked to e-bikes or e-scooters than small devices and had a rate of injury four times higher than other types of fire.
"What happens with lithium-ion battery fires in particular is they rapidly will generate heat that the actual battery can't dissipate, and that constant build-up of heat then rapidly gives off fumes," Mr McGuiggan said.
"Those fumes become toxic, they can also become explosive, and then it can become a really dynamic environment."
Dr Best advised consumers not to tinker with lithium-ion batteries, to invest in well-made products and to charge items on non-flammable surfaces using the assigned charger.
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