After Oronoco recycling center fire, are lithium-ion batteries a growing hazard?

Mar. 5—ROCHESTER — Jeremiah Watson sees some positives from

the fire that broke out at his family-owned recycling center

on Feb. 26.

No one was hurt. None of the business' facilities or equipment was damaged. The wind pushed the fire in the most advantageous direction. And the fire occurred when workers were on site, not at night when a fire might have gone unnoticed for hours.

That said, a lot went wrong.

The recycling center does not take lithium-ion batteries, which — despite no battery remains being recovered — both Watson and Pine Island Fire Chief Brandon Sather agree was the cause of the fire.

And the battery that did make its way into Watson Recycling on the south side of Oronoco, Minnesota, became damaged or stressed in a way that caused it to start the Monday morning blaze in the middle of a pile of scrap metal.

"It was a spontaneous event, which is typical of lithium-ion batteries when they start fires," Watson said.

These batteries, which are now showing up in more and more devices, tools and vehicles, are a growing concern for both public safety and environmental safety.

"Because those lithium-ion batteries are in everything, we need help from our customers," Watson said. "If they know an item has a battery, we ask if they can remove that battery first."

Then, of course, Watson admits, the customer then needs to find the right place to recycle that battery.

"That's hard for consumers to figure out. It's tricky," he said.

Dave Vail, waste abatement supervisor at Olmsted County's Hazardous Waste Facilty, said the county will take batteries of a capacity up to 300 Watt hours. That covers batteries from a lot of small items: most cordless drills, phones, laptops, game controllers, e-cigarettes, smoke and CO2 detectors.

What it doesn't cover, Vail said, is batteries from most battery-powered lawn and garden equipment, especially cordless electric mowers, e-bikes, most electric scooters and, of course electric vehicles such as cars.

"Due to the safety hazard, we're not accepting the batters over 300 Watt hours, " Vail said. He added if someone brings in a battery above Olmsted County's limit, he and his staff always provide options for safe recycling and disposal.

For larger batteries, Vail said he directs customers to Batteries Plus, located at 3750 West River Parkway NW. A representative from that store said they do accept lithium-ion batteries without limit to size — provided the batteries are not damaged — at a fee of $1.85 per pound, which mostly covers the cost to ship the batteries to a recycling facility in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Vail stressed that whether the batteries are big or small, all lithium-ion batteries pose a danger.

"Small lithium-ion batteries are also hazardous," Vail said. "The fire at Watsons could have been started from (a smaller battery) and something caused it to get broken open, caused things to ignite."

Lithium is used in two different kinds of batteries. Lithium primary batteries are generally non-rechargeable batteries that are single-use batteries. According to the roguedisposal.com, lithium batteries are often button-cell, coin and any single-use batteries commonly used in devices such as watches, hearing aids, keyless car remotes, medical devices calculators and even greeting cards.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation notes that lithium batteries — as well as alkaline, carbon zinc, chloride zinc (commonly labeled heavy duty) and zinc air batteries rated at 9 volts or less can be disposed of in the trash as long as the battery terminals are taped or the batteries are individually placed in plastic bags.

Lithium-ion batteries, which are usually rechargeable batteries, are a different story. According to the National Fire Protection Association, lithium-ion batteries can react to the air when damaged or overheated, and the energy of the battery will then create enough heat to start a fire. And while lithium as a straight metal is reactive to both air and water — which is why lithium batteries should never be damaged either — lithium-ion batteries use a lithium "salt" which, when ignited, can be put out with water.

"Many of the batteries are being produced overseas, so there isn't a consistent quality control of the batteries," said Vail, who added that he sees new version of lithium-ion batteries in different devices all the time. "Many people don't even know they have a lithium or a lithium-ion battery in something they own."

That situation, Watson said, is what he hopes happened with the lithium-ion battery that started the fire at his recycling center last week.

"I hate to be accusatory, and it certainly could have been an oversight," Watson said. "Those batteries are in so many things. I don't want to say someone did it on purpose. But the end result is the same."

Watson said his workers noticed smoke coming from the middle of a pile of metal and other items. They tried extinguishing the fire with equipment they had on hand, but that didn't work, and a call to 9-1-1 was placed. He credits the hard work of the Pine Island Fire Department and the help they received from the Oronoco Fire Department as well as his own crew members, who used a crane to help firefighters gain access to the heart of the fire.

Sather added the team effort helped.

"They use their cranes to pull it apart for us," the fire chief said. "It was just in a massive junk pile. We could have never got to the source of the fire."

Meanwhile, tanker trucks shuttled water to the site on a nonstop basis as firefighters were on the scene for six hours. Sather said they used somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 gallons of water fighting the fire. That, he said, is a lot. It would be the equivalent of battling a structure fire in the middle of town and needing to protect adjacent structures while fighting the fire in a house.

"Batteries are kind of a newer thing," Sather said of the emerging threat they present for firefighters. "We're aware and know how to deal with them. But they take so much more water to put out."

He added while fighting the fire, his own crew needed to be cautious not to breathe in fumes from the fire. While that's a common concern at any fire, Sather said, "The battery itself and anything its burning isn't something you'd want to breathe in. Typically any fire you don't want to breathe the smoke in, but in this case, even more."

Sather said he expects to deal with more and more of these types of fires as these batteries continue to expand their reach into the electronic devices we use each day. Like Vail and Watson, he wants the public to know lithium-ion batteries cannot simply be thrown away when your device has outlived its usefulness.

"We've got to get the public to learn how to dispose of them better," Sather said.

Batteries come with a rating that should be printed on the battery or in the user manual for the device they've come with.

Vail said that while some batteries or manuals might include the Watt hours rating for that battery, often the batteries just list the volts and the amps. However, that information is plenty to figure out the Watt hours yourself. Simply take the volts and multiply that by the amp hours to get the Watt hours. For example, a 12 volt battery with 25 amp hours is 300 Watts. Batteries for many devices such as cordless drills are measured in amp seconds, so you would need to covert amp seconds to amp hours by dividing by 3,600.

If in doubt, take the battery to

Olmsted County Hazardous Waste Facility

at 305 Energy Parkway NE, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, or call 507-328-7070 for assistance.