Research involving Münster University of Applied Sciences and BRT HARTNER suggests that gentle bag opening can reduce fire risk at lightweight-packaging sorting plants. The study compared facilities that open bags with plants using pre-shredders at the start of mechanical treatment, focusing on heat detections linked to incorrectly discarded lithium-ion batteries.
Data came from eleven German sorting plants. Four facilities equipped with bag openers recorded no more than three or four heat detections per month during three-shift operation. Six comparable plants using pre-shredding averaged about three detections per day—roughly twenty times as many. A seventh site was excluded from direct comparison because it received a different household and residual-waste mix.
The proposed explanation is mechanical. A bag opener tears and empties packaging while trying to keep individual items intact; a shredder applies more destructive forces and is more likely to damage a battery before downstream X-ray or optical sorting can remove it. Once punctured or crushed, a lithium-ion cell can heat rapidly and ignite surrounding plastics and paper.
The results come from an industry-linked bachelor’s thesis rather than a controlled multi-year safety trial, so plant design and incoming material remain important variables. Even so, the difference is large enough to justify closer evaluation. With battery-related fires disrupting facilities and raising insurance costs, selecting gentler infeed equipment may be an important first layer alongside detection, isolation and suppression systems.
Source: Waste Management World
