GERMANTOWN, Wis. — In Germantown, WM is getting ready to reopen its facility, capable of processing 240,000 tons of recyclable material a year. It’s a behemoth of a metal machine, in a building that could house a 757. But this Goliath could be taken down by David in the back of your remote.
“I’ve done this for more than 30 years and we see more fires in all of our facilities, recycling operations, landfills, and even our trucks now that are a lot of times caused by lithium-ion batteries,” Frank Fello, Upper Midwest Area Vice President of WM said. “It’s a danger for our people and it’s a danger for the communities.”
Wednesday marks America Recycles Day and Fello hopes people will use the day as an opportunity to better understand how to recycle properly.
While Fello points out lithium-ion batteries as an issue, the Department of Natural Resources says no batteries, not even single-use alkaline batteries, should be placed in at-home recycling bins.
“It’s not those big cordless drill kind of batteries,” Fello said. “It may be a greeting card that has a battery or it may be somebody’s old cell phone that has a lithium-ion battery in it that somebody threw in a dumpster. It gets crushed and it’s going to be a fire and a big issue.”
The City of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works says a May 2023 fire at its Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) could have been started by an improperly disposed battery. According to the DNR, Milwaukee processes about 48,500 tons per year. When a system goes offline due to a fire or other closure, all of that recyclable material has to go somewhere.
WM has been renovating its Germantown facility, so it was not available to take the overflow from offline facilities. So, Fello says, it usually gets shipped by truck to another facility, either locally or out of state.
“It goes back to the capacity,” Fello said. “If we go down, the other regional plants may not be able to handle that additional volume. So now, we are going to have to put it on trucks and ship it to other locations.”
Other improperly disposed of items can put a system offline. Fello says plastic bags and other wirey types of items can jam up these machines and slow things down.
But it’s an entirely preventable issue.
The DNR provides a guide on what to do with household batteries, including finding a drop-off location.
UW-Green Bay has an interactive map that can show you what batteries are accepted at what locations. You can visit their website here.
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