Justine Haves: General Manager of Waste Solutions says lithium-ion batteries behind spring of rubbish truck fires

It's been a fiery start to 2025, with at least nine Auckland rubbish trucks bursting into flames in the first two weeks of the year.

Auckland Council says it's likely due to ever-increasing numbers of batteries and battery-powered devices being dumped in bins.

The Auckland recycling facility that sorts the region’s kerbside recycling, has two small fires a week - usually sparked by lithium-ion batteries.

General Manager of Waste Solutions Justine Haves says there's been a significant uptake in lithium-ion batteries in the waste stream - and this is likely the cause of these fires.

"We can't attribute them to the fires directly, but what we do know is that they're highly explosive material and there's many more of them in our waste stream than ever before."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the first two weeks of this year, batteries have
caused five different fires in rubbish and recycling trucks, and
that is just in Auckland. The Auckland recycling facility has
one or two small fires every week. Justin Hayes is
with Auckland Council. She's the general manager of Waste Solutions
and she's with us this afternoon, Good afternoon, justing, good afternoon.

(00:23):
This is all to do with lithium iron batteries, are
we sure of that?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
We can't attribute them the fires directly, but what we
do know is that they're highly explosive material and there's
many more of them in our waste stream than ever before,
and we are experiencing many more fires. So it's a
very very likely cause of this issue.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
How many, So five fire truck fires in the space
of a couple of weeks since we started the year,
that's nuts.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, we've actually had nine in January now, so that
that was in the first two weeks and we've had
another fource. So yes, that's our highest number in one month.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
What happens when there's a fire? Does the driver see
smoke and then pull over and call someone? Is there
an explosion.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Sometimes they are aware with something like smoke and kind
of can take more precaution. Sometimes there's an explosion. Sometimes
they're literally seeing the footage of flames in the truck,
And unfortunately, the only way of extinguishing the fire at
the moment is to drive to a safe place where
they can tip the rubbish out onto the ground so

(01:35):
that emergency services can put out the fire. And the
problem with the fire is it requires huge volumes of
water to put out, so then that creates a whole
load more waste and environmental spoil, which then requires even
more clean up. So yeah, it's a big problem. And
of course that relies on the truck being able to

(01:56):
get somewhere safe to offloat.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, and that would just presumably be the closest place.
So then you end up then with a bunch of
rubbish on the side of the road that I guess
you guys are going to come and clean up again,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
And unfortunately many of these fires occur in our recycling trucks,
so actually that all of that recycling material then becomes
our landfill rather than recyclable, right, So it's a bit
of a double.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Whaarme what do you know what the main culport is
because there's you know, there's the whole ev batteries, there's
the scooters, there's the vapes. Do you know, do you
have an idea of which of those is the worst offender?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, we don't really. Unfortunately the problem is the increasing
numbers of all of those things, so vapes, laptop batteries, phones,
electronic toothbrushes, raises, toys. You know, there's an an endless
number of things now that have batteries to operate them,
and that's the problem. So it's difficult to estimate the

(02:51):
total number of these batteries that are in circulation. So
it's actually hard to even estimate the scale of this risk.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Interesting. Just thanks so much for your time. That's Justine
haes or thus Us, the general manager of Waste Solutions
for Auckland Council. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
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