Editorial

15:53 JST, July 10, 2025

Accidents involving the ignition of lithium-ion storage batteries that have been mixed in with household garbage are rapidly increasing. Manufacturers and local governments need to properly collect these batteries and make thorough efforts to recycle them.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in smartphones, cordless vacuum cleaners and other daily necessities because they are compact, have high storage capacity and can be recharged repeatedly.

On the other hand, they are vulnerable to heat and impacts and can easily ignite when flammable gases are generated inside or there is a short circuit. They must be handled with great care.

In fiscal 2023, instances of fires believed to have been caused by storage batteries mixed in with household garbage doubled from the previous fiscal year to about........

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