Disposal of damaged lithium batteries

[Merilyn1]

Tapping into the brains trust here. Does anyone have any solid idea of what we should be doing with damaged lithium batteries? I have encountered batteries that have swollen up, so wondering what we should have done with them.

In my WHS role, I am putting together some information about preventing fires from lithium batteries. Fire and Rescue NSW say not to put them in roadside collection nor into the recycling bins you see at places like Bunning etc but they don't give a definite answer to where to go. A link takes you to the chemical clean up site, so maybe there. I also found info about packing the damaged batteries into vermiculite or some other inert material. Lots of possible ideas but nothing concrete.

To save my sanity, I was hoping there was someone else here who had looked into this.

[bigmack]

At my last school I was ITC one day a week . I quickly realised that the batteries in most of our Chromebooks were swollen up so much they were bulging up the keyboards and the keys were actually flicking off .
LOL ….. I naturally blamed the kids at first until I changed a few keyboards and found the real problem .

Head master said get rid of them . We called an E-waste mob who come and happily took them . For a fee of coarse .

Edit: Just remembered , we had an unused flammables cabinet I stored them in until pickup .

[Marama T]

We take ours to the local tip for recycling. Check with your council.

[bigmack]

When I was worrying like heck about how dangerous these batteries were , I did a bit of googling . Yes there have been a few cases of batteries catching fire .
I watched a professor who specialises in Lithium batteries and his opinion was that yup , they can catch fire . But it is very rare . About one in 1000,000,000 lithium batteries catch fire .

Having said that ,and off topic , a mate on another forum I’m on showed a pic of a good old Lead Acid car battery that exploded in his garage last week .Ohh , sulfuric acid anyone ?

IMG_0967.jpeg

I agree with Marama

Take them to the Tip or recycling centre . Chances of your car battery exploding on the way are possibly as high as one of those lithium batteries being naughty .

[Milo]

I'm pretty sure Battery World will take any and all types of batteries for recycling, including lithium-ion. If you've got one near you it might be worth checking with them.

[Merilyn1]

I guess the difference between a lead acid battery and a lithium battery is the catastrophe that results if the lithium battery does catch alight - difficult to extinguish, toxic fumes that are emitted.

I do agree that the likelihood of a good quality lithium battery igniting is low. Most of the problems occur with cheaper batteries (cheap electric scooters), people charging with a different cable, the incorrect replacement battery being installed, charging in a confined space where they can overheat and people thinking they can make modifications to the system. There have been some horrendous outcomes with house fires in these situations.

As I said, the issue I was having were with batteries that are bulging, so clearly not in good condition. Some info on the web says to take these to recycling and some info said not to, but then didn't go on to say what we should be doing with them!

Thanks for all your input!

[mtg]

I had a Duracell AA explode, spat out the carbon rod. Aldi take old batteries, don't know about Lithium.

[LabTechBrooke]

We had a garbage truck have to dump it's load behind our school after the rubbish caught fire, they believe from a lithium battery. Thankfully we were downwind.

[RosalieL]

We had a garbage truck have to dump it's load behind our school after the rubbish caught fire, they believe from a lithium battery. Thankfully we were downwind.

I once went to a garbage truck fire when I was a fire fighter. It was a disgusting job! I'm not sure if they worked out the cause but gosh it stank! The driver was lucky to pull over and dump the load where he did because another few hundred metres in the direction he was going and it would have been houses both sides of the road and dumped in the middle of the New England Highway! I don't know how much warning they get when the load catches fire.

[Merilyn1]

I just don't want to be the person who goes "I think that was the dodgy battery I put in the bin". Likewise the battery collection points at retailers. Makes me hope they have this included in their emergency plans.

Burning garbage. Hmmm is that why you are now a labbie?

[RosalieL]

https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/incident.ph ... mqRqAdIn6p

I just came across this while looking for something completely unrelatesd!

[RosalieL]

So I followed some links and ended up here:

https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=9396

"Place leaking or damaged (but not overheated or off-gassing) batteries in a clear plastic bag or container and take them to a Community Recycling Centre [external link] or a Household Chemical CleanOut event [external link] for disposal."


This is the external link for the community recycling centre:

https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environ ... ng-centres


And the household chemical cleanout event link:

https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environ ... l-cleanout

[Merilyn1]

I think I went down that dark path and came across something that said they wouldn't take damaged batteries. I'm a bit up to my eyeballs this afternoon and don't have the time to check. Maybe it was something I thought of at 4am (see my other post under Welcome to Term 3).