Ageo's garbage disposal facility has been restored, and the battery collection method has been changed to prevent fires.

Last autumn, Nishikaizuka Environmental Center in Ageo City, Saitama Prefecture suffered a fire that was believed to have been caused by improperly discarded lithium-ion batteries. After restoration work was completed, the disposal of incombustible waste resumed on July 28. The city is working to prevent a recurrence by changing the method of collecting lithium-ion batteries.

It was last October that there was a fire at the center's oversized garbage disposal facility. A rubber belt conveyor and other items carrying crushed materials were set on fire. The cause of the fire has not been determined, but the city believes that a lithium-ion battery that was mistakenly discarded as non-burnable garbage was hit and ignited.

Lithium-ion batteries can emit smoke and catch fire when excessive pressure is applied to a combustible organic solvent, and similar fires have occurred one after another at waste disposal facilities in the prefecture, such as the recycling center in Soka City.

According to Ageo City, the total cost of restoring the facility was about 480 million yen. In addition to making the belt conveyor made of flame-resistant rubber, a system was introduced that detects even the ignition of an incense stick and stops its movement, sprinkling water.

The impact of the fire was great. It cost about 50 million yen to outsource the waste disposal business to other local governments until restoration. About 3,000 large bags of incombustible waste remain around the facility, and it is expected to take nearly a year to dispose of all of them.

To prevent similar accidents, the city changed the collection method for small rechargeable batteries, including lithium-ion batteries. In addition to the method of putting them in collection boxes installed at home appliance stores and local governments, from July it has become possible to put them in transparent bags and separate them from non-burnable garbage before disposing of them at collection sites.

The city says, ``If it is crushed together with other garbage, the impact will be too great. (Noriko Kobayashi)