Early in the morning on Friday 15 August, one of our hard waste collection teams had to dump a load of collected materials in the car park at Reg Harris Reserve in Oakleigh East because it was showing signs of potential fire.
Further investigation by our waste team and contractors quickly found that the cause of the fire was AA lithium-ion batteries.
Batteries placed in household bins or hard waste collections they can cause fire, putting our waste team and community at risk. They must be disposed at designated disposal points.
A search for drop-off locations on the Battery Recycle website shows 116 different drop-off points within 10km of Reg Harris Reserve where our truck had to make an emergency stop.
See our website for information about safely disposing batteries and electronic items and please think about the safety of our teams on collection trucks and at sorting facilities.
Our hard waste collection runs across Monash to September, if your collection is coming up review the information provided about what you can include.
