Photo/Illutration The apparent burnt-out remnants of a lithium-ion battery found on a fire scene (Provided by Saitama city)

SAITAMA--The public is being called upon to avoid a repeat of a fire that caused tens of millions of yen (hundreds of thousands of dollars) in damage to a waste-processing facility here, from a lithium-ion battery tossed into the trash. 

That sort of cell should not have been thrown out with household waste, as the resulting blaze destroyed the sorting machine in April at the recycling facility for unburnable trash within the Sakura Environmental Center.

When the damaged facility in Sakura Ward can resume full operations remain unclear, with the line’s temporary restoration completed shortly after the Golden Week holiday period in early May.

Saitama city is asking residents not to dispose of lithium-ion batteries along with ordinary waste.

According to the accounts of the municipality’s environmental facility department, incombustible trash is collected and brought by garbage trucks to a site called a pit for tentative storage.

The waste undergoes a crushing process on two occasions and what remains is sorted into what can be burnt as well as iron and aluminum.

The blaze was reported April 10 near the sorting machine and the conveyor belt that carries the separated trash, as a lithium-ion cell for use in mobile phones and small electronic devices caught fire when crushed or broken.

The sorter was not fitted with a fire alarm or sprinkler unlike the pit and the waste-crushing zone, because it was vulnerable to water.

It took nearly five hours to extinguish the flames. The apparent burnt-out remains of a lithium-ion battery was reportedly spotted on the scene.

It was the first time for garbage treatment plants in Saitama city to be suspended for lengthy periods due to blazes connected to this type of cell.

The date of the recycling facility’s full restart has yet to be decided, although the facility tentatively resumed operations on May 8.

The repair costs are projected to tens of millions of yen. The damage will be covered by insurance and no new budgetary measures will reportedly be needed.

Saitama city’s environmental facility department urged citizens to be careful.

“A fire can never start if such batteries are separated appropriately from waste under the municipality's disposal rules,” said a department representative. “The only possible countermeasure is ensuring trash be thoroughly sorted properly.”

The city recommends lithium-ion batteries be removed from cellphones and other devices and their electrodes be taped before they are placed into collection boxes installed at not only electronics retailers but also the ward office and the city-run library.

FIRES ACROSS SAITAMA PREFECTURE

In Saitama Prefecture, a similar blaze was reported in the bulky refuse processing facility in the Nishi-Kaizuka environmental center in Ageo in October 2020.

The repair costs, including replacing a conveyor belt with a flame-retardant one, came to 480 million yen ($3.48 million). An additional 50 million yen is said to have been used to commission another municipality to treat its waste until the facility’s reconstruction.

Saitama Governor Motohiro Ono April 26 called for the thorough elimination of lithium-ion batteries from the trash at a meeting of the governors and the major cities’ mayors from Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures.

Saitama Prefecture in the last fiscal year conducted a survey asking all municipalities whether any fires and other disasters had been reported because of lithium-ion cells at garbage treatment centers and elsewhere.

It found that accidents related to lithium-ion batteries had occurred in 60 percent of them.

(This article was written by Shigeru Iwahori and Yuki Kawano.)

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