Fire officials in San Ramon Valley, California, cautioned locals to avoid tossing batteries in the trash after flames engulfed a garbage truck in a startling conflagration, according to KRON4.
What's happening?
On Tuesday, July 22, the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District responded to a call about a fire in progress in a parking lot.
It wasn't immediately clear what triggered the fire. The driver swiftly emptied its trash compartment, where waste was actively burning.
The flames were doused on the pavement of the parking lot away from the garbage truck, and the incident was resolved in just over an hour.
Later that day, the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District shared striking photographs of the fire to Facebook, alongside a caution to residents about the safe disposal of batteries.
After lauding the "quick action of the driver" for "offloading" the fiery trash, the SRVFPD alluded to the suspected cause of the fire.
"We would like to remind everyone to properly dispose of batteries. Batteries of any kind should not be thrown in the garbage," the SRVFPD said.
Why is a garbage truck fire so concerning?
On July 20, the Mesa Tribune published an editorial about the "increasing danger" posed by the prevalence of battery-operated items in daily life, quoting Seneca Insurance.
"In the past three years, lithium-ion battery fires have replaced electrical fires as the leading cause of fatal fires in New York City, surpassing blazes caused by cooking and smoking," the agency said.
Mesa Fire Capt. Jim Barnhart estimated that a two-person household contains an average of between 20 and 60 battery-operated devices.
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As one person observed, garbage truck fires are not uncommon. Recent headlines further emphasized how frequently batteries cause vehicle fires — in September, a tractor-trailer's battery fire led to a freeway closure in San Pedro.
Incidentally, on the day the SRVFPD responded to a garbage truck fire in California, a similar occurrence unfolded in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, after an unknown individual disposed of a "bag" of lithium-ion cell phone batteries improperly.
What can be done about it?
Lithium-ion batteries are classified as e-waste, which typically cannot be disposed of alongside household trash for several reasons.
New York City advised residents that it's "DANGEROUS and ILLEGAL to dispose of all rechargeable and most single-use batteries with trash or recycling" due to the fire risk, and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that lithium-ion batteries in landfills "release toxic pollutants" and contaminate the "air, soil, dust, and water" extensively.
Procedures vary by jurisdiction, but battery recycling programs and e-waste disposal sites offer a safe way to ensure used batteries won't implode in a garbage truck or leach toxins into the environment.
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