Battery fires surge in Japan

[Anchor]

In Japan, fires are occurring frequently at waste disposal sites due to lithium-ion batteries.

Fires are igniting from batteries that have been discarded with regular trash, with estimates suggesting over 8,000 incidents occur annually.

This is our correspondent Hwang Jin-woo in Tokyo.

[Report]

This is a waste disposal facility in Tokyo, Japan.

Employees are meticulously searching through the trash to check for lithium-ion batteries.

["There is smoke coming out."]

If batteries are left as they are, they can catch fire during waste processing due to internal damage or external impact.

["Oh no..."]

A fire that occurred in December last year at a waste disposal facility in Chiba Prefecture, and another fire in Ibaraki Prefecture in the same month, are both believed to have started from lithium-ion batteries.

The Japanese government estimates that fires caused by lithium-ion batteries during the waste disposal process exceeded 8,500 incidents in 2023 alone.

As the use of batteries increases, the number of fires is also on the rise.

Once a fire breaks out, it takes time to restore the facility, paralyzing waste processing in the area.

This is a waste disposal facility where a recent fire occurred, and unprocessed trash is piled up in the yard.

Ultimately, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment has established a policy that each local government is responsible for safely collecting lithium-ion batteries.

[Asao Keiichiro/Japanese Minister of the Environment: "We ask that you contact your local government regarding proper disposal methods to help prevent fire incidents."]

The method to prevent fires is to not mix lithium-ion batteries with regular trash, but to discharge them completely and cover the terminals with insulating tape before disposal.

This is Hwang Jin-woo from KBS News in Tokyo.