A sprinkler system is being considered for the Ashburton Resource Recovery Park’s pit area following two fires in the last few weeks thought to have been started by discarded batteries.

Infrastructure and Open Spaces Group Manager Neil McCann said batteries of any sort should not be disposed of at the pit face or in kerbside rubbish or recycling.

“We have a special battery recycling point at the resource recovery park and it is free, so we’d really like to see people using it. Collect all your dead batteries at home and bring them to the park.”

A fire last month started after a customer dropped rubbish into the open pit; a child’s toy with a battery was amongst the items discarded and an investigation after the fire pinpointed it as the likely cause.

Mr McCann said the fire was quickly put out because park staff compacting rubbish at the pit face spotted it.

“It could have been a lot worse and we were lucky it was seen before a larger fire developed.”

There was another fire this week, in one of the pods that contains compacted rubbish from the pit area.

A sprinkler system is now being considered for the pit area; it could also be used to dampen down excess dust on windy days.

Batteries accepted at the resource recovery park’s drive-through drop-off include alkaline, drycell and zinc batteries, button cells, LI-ion (used in laptops, cameras, cellphones and tools), and other batteries like NiCd, NiMH, gel and button cells, and camera batteries).

Batteries disposed of in kerbside rubbish have also been known to cause fires in collection trucks.

Not sure? Ask our team at the recovery park or check out all the details at binitright.nz