Wa are FCC - Nº16

FCC Environment supports battery recycling thus contributing to reducing rubbish fires Take Charge, searching for a new life for batteries FCC Environment has joined “the fight against Zombie batteries” in a bid to tackle the growing number of fires caused by carelessly discar - ded dead batteries. the new natio- nal Take Charge campaign, which urges consumers to only recycle dead batteries using specialist ba- ttery recycling services, and to ne- ver throw batteries away alongside general rubbish or other recycling. FCC Environment and its local au- thority partners are asking residents looking to dispose of dead batte- ries to take them to local collection points – often to be found in super- markets – or to their local household waste recycling centre. Dead batteries are likely to be crus- hed or punctured once the waste is collected and processed. Some battery types in particular, like li- thium-ion (Li-ion) and nickel-metal Hydride (NiMH), can ignite or even explode when they’re damaged. Once this happens, the batteries can quickly set fire to other mate - rials present in the waste, like paper, leading to serious incidents that put lives at risk. Although safe to use normally, powerful lithium-ion batteries are typically the most dangerous if they are not recycled properly. These ba- tteries are often found in products like laptops, tablets, mobile phones, radio-controlled toys, Bluetooth de- vices, shavers, electric toothbrus- hes, power tools, scooters and even e-cigarettes. The recycling and waste ma- nagement trade body, the En- vironmental Services Asso- ciation (ESA), which launched the campaign, conducts an annual survey of its members to record the proportion of fi - res occurring at recycling and waste facilities that are known or thought to have been started by lithium-ion batteries in parti- cular. Recent data collected by the ESA shows that, between April 2019 and March 2020, li- thium-ion batteries alone were thought to be responsible for more than 250 fires at its mem - bers’ facilities during the year – or well over a third of all fires. As a members of the ESA, FCC Environment hopes that by en- couraging the public to recycle batteries responsibly, it will re- duce the number of “zombie batteries” present in general waste and recycling, thereby reducing the number of fires in future. SEE CAMPAIGN The Environmental Services Association (ESA) R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y 40 R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y