In just one December week in Peoria, garbage haulers had to dump two loads onto the street so firefighters could come and extinguish flames caused by lithium-ion batteries in electric scooters that were crushed in the trucks.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, a plan to ship truckloads of garbage downstate by barge is kaput after environmental justice concerns were raised in Little Village, as Brett Chase reported Friday in the Chicago Sun-Times.
It’s time to be smarter about how communities dispose of their garbage.
Lithium-ion batteries, which also power smart phones, laptops, power banks, tablets and other devices, hold a significant charge even when they are too weak to power a particular device. When damaged, they can cause a fire. Around the country, such fires have severely damaged recycling centers and trash-handling facilities, spewing molten copper, aluminum and toxic gases. In August, lithium-ion batteries were blamed for burning down an entire recycling center in Georgia.
Last month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission held a hearing after a series of explosions by lithium-ion batteries caused fires across the country.
Many communities have drop-off programs for lithium-ion batteries. But to make garbage safer, the Illinois Legislature should enact legislation introduced in the House and Senate that would require manufacturers and retailers to do more to prevent lithium-ion batteries from winding up in the trash or recycling.
The bills, introduced by Senate Assistant Majority Leader David Koehler (D-Peoria) and state Rep. Sharon Chung (D-Bloomington), would create “battery stewardship organizations” of manufacturers and retailers that would ensure all batteries that pose a risk are clearly marked as unsuitable for household waste. The organizations also would ensure safe collection sites or safe collection events are set up in each county, and they would be required to ensure at least 70% of original batteries and 60% of rechargeable batteries are properly disposed of.
Plan to ship garbage nixed
As for the plan to ship garbage downstate, a company called LRS said in 2022 it could keep 22 million pounds a year of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere by shipping garbage along the Sanitary and Ship Canal to downstate Henry, whence it would be trucked to a landfill 50 miles to the west. The plan also would keep trucks leaving Chicago that otherwise would carry the trash from releasing 1.5 million pounds of particulate emissions a year, LRS said. The canal connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River, which flows into the Illinois River.
But LRS wanted to build a barge dock and loading infrastructure near the conjunction of the canal and the so-called Collateral Channel near its existing material recovery facility. That raised concerns by Little Village activists, who feared the barges might stir up toxins in the muck at the bottom of the Collateral Channel. A study by the University of Illinois Chicago found the Collateral Channel’s sediment has high levels of heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other contaminants.
LRS put the plan back on the shelf after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided to investigate contamination in the channel. The multi-year project will get underway in the next two years.
Jen Walling, executive director for the Illinois Environmental Council, said planners should have taken into account that Little Village is an environmental justice community and ensured any changes would not add to the community’s burden.
Walling also said addressing the risks of lithium-ion batteries is overdue.
“We need to make different better and different choices going forward,” Walling told us.
Handling garbage removal in a way that is safe and benefits the environment is common sense. Unsafe practices belong in the refuse bin.
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