Several explosions were heard at the recycling center in Trollhättan yesterday after lithium batteries caught fire. The fire took several hours to extinguish and a VMA was issued for much of Sunday.
– I am not at all surprised that what happened happened yesterday, says Christer Andersson, CEO of Svenska Batterilagret.
The fire is said to have started in a lithium-ion battery, but one is still waiting for the technical investigation to know exactly how the fire started.
Second fire in a year – despite new procedures
According to Thomas Karlström, the CEO of IQR, which stores the batteries before they are recycled abroad, the fire that happened at the same facility in January this year may have been caused by the batteries being packaged in the wrong way.
– This thing with battery recycling is quite new and it has received attention from MSB and other authorities. The way in which batteries are stored and packaged today can be questioned as to whether it is correct, he said at a press conference.
Fredrik Benson, CEO of the producer organization El-kretsen, says P4 West that they have changed the way they pack the batteries after the first fire. The electric circuit is responsible for the collection and handling of batteries and are the ones who have given IQR the task of storing the batteries until recycling.
– We will review the routines once more. There should be more vermiculite than there may have been before, says Fredrik Benson.
More battery fires can happen
Vermiculite is a substance used to mix the batteries with to minimize the risk of short circuits and fire hazards.
When lithium batteries experience an electrical short circuit, heat is generated in an uncontrolled manner and as the temperature increases rapidly, it can catch fire. If the battery is then tightly packed with other batteries, it can create a domino effect.
Christer Andersson believes that lithium batteries are collected and stored “carefully” in Sweden and the rest of the world. It is particularly flammable that private individuals can hand in batteries for recycling without the batteries being sorted or their poles taped.
– That this will happen again is obvious when you handle it like this, says Christer Andersson.