North Fulton Today

Batteries from common items like mobile phones, laptops, gaming devices, and electric toothbrushes contain metals such as lithium and nickel that can spark and even explode when damaged. Lithium batteries also have the potential to overheat and cause explosions, which can easily happen when they are mixed with garbage or recyclables.

Recently, one of the Republic Services trucks collecting recycling from Alpharetta residences caught fire due to a laptop battery that a resident had placed in their recycling bin. Fortunately, the driver spotted the smoke and was able to extinguish the fire while it was still small, but this could have been a very dangerous situation.

As noted in this story from Fox 5 Atlanta, this is far from an isolated incident. Fires in garbage trucks and trash/recycling processing facilities due to improperly disposed batteries are on the rise, endangering workers and causing serious damage to facilities and vehicles.

To safely dispose of rechargeable batteries, either bring them to one of the two electronic waste disposal events held each year or check with stores such as Home Depot, Lowes, Batteries Plus, and others that sell replacement batteries.

To learn more about this topic, watch this video produced by Republic Services.