-This is a problem
that may take a little while to get around,
but the public really needs to be educated on
1 -- Lithium ion batteries are everywhere.
A lithium battery is a non-rechargeable
formatted battery.
Lithium ion batteries -- that's your rechargeable format,
and contrary to what you may think about --
like, the lithium battery has a fair amount
of lithium metal in it.
A lithium ion battery has very little lithium metal in it,
like, on par with dust.
They put it in a suspension agent, which is the electrolyte,
and that paste is run over an anode
and a cathode and a separator,
and that is part of what is used
to make a rechargeable lithium ion battery.
When you compare it to, like, an alkaline battery,
like a AA, the same weight of cell,
you get four times more energy out of a lithium ion battery.
You have three different types of cells.
You know, you've got the lithium ion polymer,
which this would have been out of your phone.
This might have been out of an iPad.
This is a lithium ion polymer
that would have been in a car.
Bigger, still the same thing.
Prismatic is the other type of cell that you might have.
And this is just -- it's kind of like a polymer.
But this is an example of what's called a prismatic.
But the one that we see personally the most
is a cylindrical cell.
It's called the 18650.
This is the one that you see most often used
in e-mobility devices, tools, toys, things like that.
When I think about where I see this 18650 cell being used,
and that matters to the fire department,
it's the skateboard fire,
and this is a fire just from the other night.
These things would have been in here pretty much like that,
and that's where our fire started.
This guy right here -- this was from a fire
I was at a few months back.
Again, these are 18650 cells. This is from an e-bike.
And so, what's called cell fire propagation,
meaning the fire starts to move between cells
and it's driving itself --
this is exactly the environment.
In this thing, you've got about
80 18650s all wired up in here,
and it will move through this thing like firecrackers,
you know, and sometimes,
you'll get eight or nine of these things.
They'll all burn off at the same time,
and then maybe you wait 20 minutes
and then the rest of them start kicking off.
We're finding these things are rekindling days later.
And again, it doesn't mean that this cell is firing off again,
but it's a different cell in the pack.
You know, we're sitting at about 10 a month,
sometimes more, sometimes a little less,
but about every couple of days,
one of these things is kicking off in a garage
or in somebody's home or somewhere around the city,
and we're having to go out and deal with it.
A fire that's driven by a lithium ion source
is very difficult to put out.
They burn without oxygen.
They burn without water. They make their own heat source.
So, this resulted in a fire up on floor nine,
1st and Cherry.
We believe it was a mechanical failure.
She was trying to get the battery
out of the of the back of the car -- the bike,
and the battery would have been right here
and she would have been trying to get it out.
She said it just flashed on her, and all of a sudden,
there was fire everywhere.
Lithium ion, you're dealing with hydrogen gas.
You're dealing with a flame speed
that's on par, you know, with explosive.
So, one of the simplest things you can do
is consider where you're charging it.
When we consider an e-mobility, we're finding those things
are being charged, plugged in right by the front door.
That's a bad idea
because if you have a fire at your front door,
you lose your exit.
If the batteries are starting to fail,
meaning they're getting hot,
meaning they don't plug in as well as they used to,
or they're swelling, you're seeing signs of damage
to the battery itself, that's a problem
that you're not going to be able to fix,
and you're going to want to move on
to a new tool or a new device.
When it comes to the recharging device,
stick with the manufacturer's equipment.
That cord, that battery management system,
the device itself, it's all meant to work together,
and it's designed to work together.
When you start piecemealing parts,
you've now changed what the designer's intents were
with that stuff,
and those micro-changes,
it may mean that now your battery management system,
which is what keeps your battery healthy,
keeps it from overcharging, keeps it from charging too fast,
that's now changed.
They cannot be just discarded in the garbage.
-We're seeing more and more consumer products
that contain batteries, and unfortunately,
that means they're also showing up in our waste stream.
-The number one cause of fires
in recycling and garbage facilities,
going all the way back to 2014 --
lithium and lithium ion batteries.
-Even if they're not damaged when they're disposed,
they are often damaged in the process of collecting
and disposing of the waste.
Batteries also contain toxic materials like cadmium, lead,
and nickel, that can leak and pose environmental risks
if not properly managed.
-If you're looking to dispose of your batteries, right now,
the Hazardous Waste Management Program
operates four locations throughout King County,
where you can go dispose of your batteries.
We have a mobile waste-mobile
which goes around to different areas
within King County to do seasonal collection pickups.
-Starting in 2024,
batteries will be banned from disposal here in Seattle.
Seattle Public Utilities also offers curbside collection
through our special item collection program.
There is a $5 charge, but it's free of charge
to bring batteries of all kinds to our transfer stations
and household hazardous waste facilities.
-Senate Bill 5144 is reported
out of the Appropriations Committee with a due pass.
-The battery recycling law passed recently,
and that's exciting news.
In 2027, our producers of batteries
are going to be responsible for the collection,
disposal, and outreach
for batteries and battery containing products.
-The battery recycling law will provide free recycling
for small household batteries starting in 2027,
and for medium format batteries --
those are batteries from e-bikes and scooters,
things like that -- that will be available statewide
starting in 2029,
and it'll also ban batteries from disposal statewide
when that program goes into effect.
-This is going to go a long way to helping the public
have an avenue to recycle
damaged lithium ion batteries at no charge.
That's the point of the product stewardship,
is the stewardship is if you built it, you will bury it.
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