Lithium batteries are responsible for a 25% increase in fires in British and American centers that manage the collection and sorting of used batteries and waste electrical and electronic equipment. In December 2023, two containers, filled with lithium-based batteries, caught fire in a factory in Puy-de-Dôme.
Last November, Réunion firefighters fought a fire at Port Ouest during which 200 batteries burned. “If we do a quick calculation, in Viviez in Aveyron, it would be 10 tonnes of this element which would have flown into the atmosphere,” says a researcher.