Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 28th November 2024 Issue no. 1140

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Does your fire assessment include Lithium-ion batteries?

The fierce fire that broke out last Wednesday at Critical Mineral Recovery’s Missouri lithium-ion battery processing plant – one of the largest such operations in the world, has once again shown how difficult it can be to keep these facilities safe.

The plant is said to have boasted one of the “most sophisticated” automated, remote supervised and controlled, fire suppression systems available... One that was designed to detect a fire before it even started.

Other such facilities are often not as well managed as the many incidences of fires show. Described by insurance companies as a “meaningful fire risk”, improperly stored or used lithium-ion batteries can cause fires that start without warning and spread rapidly.

The British Safety Council has produced a new podcast: ‘Lithium-ion batteries: a growing fire risk’ as part of its ‘Health & Safety Uncut’ series, to teach people more about potential risks and how to overcome them, with input from Matt Humby, senior technical consultant at Firechief Global.

“With the number of lithium battery-related fires in residential buildings and workplaces rising, this episode provides timely and vitally important advice and information on how to minimise the risk and keep people safe,” it says. Image courtesy of ca.news.yahoo.com:

7th November 2024