Battery fire closes major CBD road

A major Townsville city centre road has been forced to temporarily close after a waste truck caught fire this morning.

The contents of the waste truck had to be dumped on Walker Street between Stokes and Denham streets, with Queensland Fire Department attending to stop the blaze.

This fire marks the third blaze in a waste truck in the past six weeks, with lithium-ion batteries identified as the cause behind the fires.

Mayor Nick Dametto said residents needed to take battery disposal advice seriously to avoid putting Council workers and first responders at further risk.

“Having to dump a load of rubbish that’s on fire comes at a risk to our drivers, and it also has the knock-on effect of delaying bin collection for other residents,” Cr Dametto said.

“From a financial risk standpoint, our waste trucks are worth $600,000 and we don’t want to have to pass the cost of replacing a truck on to ratepayers.

“The good news is we can easily avoid these types of situations by always disposing of batteries correctly, and there’s plenty of free ways to do that.

“It might seem harmless to toss your used batteries or items with built-in batteries into your bin, but those batteries can and do cause serious fires in our trucks or at our resource recovery facilities.

“The average household has over 30 battery-powered or rechargeable devices and every fire they cause is a serious risk to our equipment, our workers and our community.”

Lithium-ion batteries power items like mobile phones, drills, vacuums and electric toothbrushes. When these sorts of objects are crushed, their batteries become extremely hot in what is called ‘thermal runaway’, which causes fires and explosions.

Council is continuing to deliver the Household Embedded Battery Collections Program, an initiative of the Resource Recovery Working Group of the North Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils, allowing residents to dispose of their batteries for free at Stuart Waste Facility, Hervey Range Resource Recovery Centre or Magnetic Island Transfer Station.

The program is funded by the Queensland Government’s Local Government Battery Collection Program and will run until November this year.

There are also more than 30 other battery recycling locations across Townsville.

For loose batteries up to 5kg, visit B-cycle. For more information on what can go in your household bins, visit What Goes in Your Bins.