Whether it was the greeting card that flashes in bright colors when opened, the children's book that also makes a "moo" sound at the push of a button when the cow shown in the picture is pressed, or carelessly discarded batteries: At the Frankfurter Entsorgungs- und Service GmbH (FES) are those responsible are at a loss as to how to convey to the public that neither rechargeable batteries nor batteries, even if they are only small button cells, belong in the garbage can.

The consequences are devastating for the FES.

There have never been so many fires in the Frankfurt sorting and recycling plants as in the past few months: from the fire in the document destruction plant in May of this year, as a result of which the plant was idle for four weeks, to the fire in the waste bunker of the thermal power station in Heddernheim, the exploded,

until the six-hour deployment of the fire brigade in mid-October in the sorting plant for commercial waste.

There were a total of six fires this year.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

From the point of view of the FES, the worst case was the fire in the waste paper sorting plant in Osthafen on August 22nd.

The damage amounts to 1.8 million euros and will paralyze the plant until May next year.

"I held my breath so that no employees of ours were injured by the fire," says Christian Dommermuth, who is responsible for this and other systems at FES.

Because it is the employees who have to act first to prevent the fire from spreading, especially since in this case the source of the fire was on one of the conveyor belts next to which waste paper is stored.

But how do these fires come about, which not only the FES is registering more and more frequently, but which the association of waste disposal companies is also pointing out with the nationwide campaign "Focus on batteries"?

"It's not the lithium batteries or batteries in and of themselves that cause fires," says Dommermuth.

But in the plants, the delivered materials are first sorted and then crushed and shredded.

"And this mechanical pressure destroys the battery and triggers the fire," says Dommermuth: "A single button battery is enough." membrane separated.

If these are destroyed, the substances react with each other, resulting in a flash fire.

"Batteries and accumulators get very hot when they burn,

"We just can't get it into our heads"

In order to destroy batteries or accumulators, it is enough for a wheel loader to drive over them, says Dommermuth.

Vehicles that are permanently in use in the halls.

But why is there this accumulation of fires at the moment?

As Dommermuth and Ramona Linz, Head of the Occupational Safety and Fire Protection department at the FES, suspect, this is because batteries are increasingly being found in everyday objects, such as children's shoes that light up when they walk, chains of lights, Santa Claus hats with flashing motifs and in electric toothbrushes.

In fact, in many electrical devices, the batteries and accumulators can no longer be removed, says Linz.

"Nevertheless, none of this has any place in normal waste, nothing in the garbage can," she says: "It's all electronic waste." There are separate collection points for this at the FES recycling depots.

The pollutant mobile is also on the road in the city.

In addition, retailers are obliged to take back small electrical appliances.

In every supermarket there are boxes for rechargeable batteries and batteries, even if they are sometimes a bit hidden.

The FES is willing to discuss whether there shouldn't be more and simpler take-back offers.

But the first step, according to Linz, starts with the household.

"We just can't get it into our heads that these small electrical parts shouldn't end up in the garbage, not in the wastepaper baskets in the offices," says Dommermuth.

There are already considerations to better equip the particularly endangered sorting systems in order to filter out batteries and accumulators.

"So far, however, we have not seen any technical possibility that can do this," he says, and Linz adds: "We have to eliminate the potential cause of the fire beforehand."

FES trains employees and procures longer hoses

There has not yet been a major fire accident in the Frankfurt waste-to-energy plant.

Those responsible do not even want to imagine what such a fire would mean for waste disposal in Frankfurt and the region.

The plant is the largest in Hesse.

There, the waste is burned untreated, which eliminates the risk of destroying batteries.

But the garbage trucks compress the waste.

During the fire in the garbage bunker in July, a delivery vehicle dumped burning garbage.

"These are still exceptional situations for us," says Dommermuth.

But overall, it has been the case for around two years that "a disposal or sorting plant in Germany is on fire every week".

Linz suspects that there are fires almost every day, many employees discovered them immediately and put them out.

Because as long as the citizens dispose of the batteries incorrectly, the only option left to the FES is to sensitize the employees even more and to intensify fire protection exercises.

"When lithium burns," says fire protection expert Schulz, "only large amounts of water help." The FES has purchased more and longer water hoses as well as personal protective equipment for the employees.

“The fact that there are more and more electronic devices is not to be condemned.

That's great, too," says Dommermuth, pointing out the advantages of a cordless screwdriver.

But batteries and accumulators should be recycled, "otherwise we lose too many important raw materials," says the disposal specialist, not to mention the endangerment of people and systems in the disposal industry.