People are being warned to get rid of their lithium-powered batteries the right way after an increase in fires on rubbish collection vehicles.

Northland Waste and Kaipara Refuse say they are not only dealing with more fires on rubbish collection vehicles, but at landfills and transfer stations too.

They say the problem is because people are chucking lithium-powered batteries into their household rubbish and the risk of fires from the highly-combustible batteries increases when rubbish is crushed.

Kaipara Refuse general manager Rob Battcher said three of their collection trucks caught fire in the last 18 months as the dumping of lithium batteries in household rubbish became more frequent.

“We had another truck fire the other day. No one was hurt and our gear is fine, but it could be a different story next time.”

When drivers see a fire in the truck, Battcher said, they have to quickly find somewhere suitable to tip the load out before calling firefighters.

“For this reason, these fires pose a risk to our drivers, the gear and the public.”

Northland Waste chief operating manager Andrew Sclater said the company’s operating staff have had to use fire extinguishers or hoses to put out several fires on rubbish collection vehicles.

“… We’re seeing a lot more ignition at our collections vehicles, transfer stations and landfill, and obviously that creates a significant health and safety risk, both for our collections staff and the public, and if we get a landfill fire, for example, it’s quite catastrophic.”

In January 2020, a major fire caused by a lithium battery broke out at the Puwera landfill, 10 kilometres south of Whangārei. Diggers, bulldozers, four helicopters and about 30 firefighters from Whangārei, Portland, Marsden Pt, Onerahi and Hikurangi were needed to bring it under control.

Sclater said people chucked lithium batteries either in their wheelie bin or rubbish bag, and then they basically combusted with other types of materials.

“The reality is domestic recycling is set up for commodity-based recycling. So your milk bottles, icecream containers and the like. Aerosols can be recycled.”

The solution, he said, was simple: bring your lithium batteries to a recycling depot – free of charge – that specifically accepts batteries and e-waste.

But disposing of laptops and cellphones powered by those batteries is not free.

“The benefits of lithium batteries are all the technology we use, but some of the recycling side of it has been a bit behind the times in terms of probable education to the public,” Sclater said.

Like lithium batteries, gas bottles are also highly combustible and should be brought to a recycling depot.

Sclater said dry cell batteries like those in TV remote were okay as they were more of a hazardous waste risk than a fire risk.

A Far North District Council spokesperson said their transfer stations provided recycling for wet and dry batteries free of charge and encouraged people to use the service rather than dispose of them in their kerbside collections.

The landfill is jointly run by Whangārei District Council and Northland Waste.

Imran Ali is a senior reporter who does general news reporting at the Advocate after more than two decades covering courts. He also takes a keen interest in rugby.