Murrindindi Shire Council Mayor Cr Damien Gallagher is alerting residents to the serious risks of improper battery disposal, following a dangerous fire at the Alexandra Landfill, believed to have been caused by a lithium battery incorrectly placed in household rubbish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fire broke out when a garbage load began emitting smoke, setting fire to surrounding waste at the landfill site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Landfill staff quickly worked to isolate and control the burning material using on-site machinery to separate burning waste, before CFA emergency services arrived to fully extinguish the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Gallagher said the fire is a serious reminder that batteries must be disposed of safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis fire started during a very hot weekend, just one day before a Total Fire Ban was declared for Murrindindi Shire, and it could have had serious consequences. Batteries of any kind must not be placed in garbage or recycling bins,” Cr Gallagher said.
“Even small household batteries can cause fires in bins, in garbage and recycling collection trucks, and at landfill sites. If this battery had caused a fire in the collection truck, the driver may have been forced to empty the load on the side of the road, creating a very hazardous situation during an extremely hot, dry and windy day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile attending the landfill fire on 4 January, I witnessed the avoidable and potentially toxic conditions that Council staff, dedicated CFA volunteers, and the community were exposed to. I strongly urge both visitors and residents of Murrindindi Shire to dispose of batteries safely and responsibly. Let\u2019s work together to keep our community safe by disposing of batteries the right way,” Cr Gallagher said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murrindindi Council regularly promotes safe and free battery disposal, encouraging residents to store unused batteries in a container and drop them off at the following locations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Alexandra Resource Recovery Centre
\u2022 Eildon Resource Recovery Centre
\u2022 Yea Resource Recovery Centre
\u2022 Marysville Resource Recovery Centre
\u2022 Kinglake Resource Recovery Centre
\u2022 Alexandra FoodWorks
\u2022 Yea FoodWorks
\u2022 Eildon FoodWorks
\u2022 Marysville Grocer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Murrindindi Shire Council Mayor Cr Damien Gallagher is alerting residents to the serious risks of improper battery disposal, following a dangerous fire at the Alexandra Landfill, believed to have been caused by a lithium battery incorrectly placed in household rubbish. The fire broke out when a garbage load began emitting smoke, setting fire to surrounding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_siteseo_robots_primary_cat":"none","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-council-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}