SLO County garbage companies have had FOUR garbage truck fires this year alone.

A truck fire happens when something flammable that was put into a curbside bin ignites in the garbage truck, starting a fire that can grow to envelop the truck. The most common culprit for truck fires are household batteries. When a garbage truck picks up your trash, recycling and organics bins, it dumps the contents into the back of the truck. And as the truck moves along the route, the mechanisms in the truck are constantly crushing and compacting everything inside, to save space before it goes to the facility to dump. That compacting is what makes batteries especially dangerous: when they get crushed, the individual cells inside of a battery are exposed, which causes a thermal reaction. It gets extremely hot, catching on fire and igniting the trash around it.

The most common culprit are lithium-ion batteries, like the ones found in cell phones, power tools or laptops, but any type of battery is liable to start a fire. It's a common assumption that if a battery can no longer power your device, it's dead. But in reality, even batteries that no longer work still store a ton of energy that can explode when crushed.

Batteries are easy and free to recycle in SLO County. Household batteries, like AA, AAA and button cell batteries can be taken back to any retailer that sells them. And lithium-ion batteries, like embedded batteries from electronic devices, can be recycled at any HHW site throughout SLO County. To learn more about the different types of batteries and a list of facilities to recycle them at, visit our webpage.

Your actions matter. By disposing of batteries the correct way, you help ensure the safety of our community. A single stray battery endangers the garbage truck drivers and facility workers who handle our waste.