North Frontenac's volunteer fire department is giving Fire Prevention Week, October 4 to 10, to the battery in your phone. The department is running it with the National Fire Protection Association, and the subject is lithium-ion batteries. Its message is three words: buy, charge, recycle.
Fire Chief Adam Robinson's report asked council on September 11 to declare the week, and council did. Banners go up at the Clarendon-Miller, Ompah and Snow Road stations and at Clarendon Central Public School. The Ompah Fire Station will hold an open house with lithium-ion fire prevention material and a free barbecue. The report left its date "to be determined." Last year's open house was held during Fire Prevention Week.
The township budgeted $5,000 for fire prevention public education this year, the same as last year. That money covers the banners, the barbecue and smoke alarms, among other things.
The week's declaration tells you the one thing worth knowing before any money changes hands. "Before you buy anything with a lithium-ion battery, do your homework. Check the packaging and product for a mark from a nationally recognized testing lab." That stamp, the declaration says, "means it meets real safety standards. A lot of products sold online and in stores don't, and that can seriously increase your risk of fire."
Think of a cheap e-bike battery off a marketplace listing, a no-name power bank, a replacement pack for a cordless drill. If there's no certification mark on it, no recognized lab has vouched for it, and it sits on a charger in the house overnight. That advice costs nothing.
Council has heard this before. In July 2024 it got a letter from the Township of Otonabee-South Monaghan. That township's fire chief had warned his own council about aftermarket batteries, the kind not made by the original manufacturer. He said they carry no Underwriters Laboratories of Canada certification and are driving a significant increase in fires and explosions.
Then there's charging. The campaign is called "Charge Into Fire Safety: Safe Charging Is a Superpower." Read the declaration council was handed and there isn't a line of advice in it about charging. Beyond the buying advice, it asks you to check your smoke alarms and have two ways out. The chief's report says the campaign outlines "simple yet important actions we ought to take when buying, charging and disposing of lithium-ion batteries." Those actions aren't in the package council received.
That leaves recycling. Where in North Frontenac do you recycle a lithium-ion battery? The township's waste disposal by-law is where to look, and the answer it gives is partial. Household hazardous waste is accepted at the 506, Plevna and Mississippi sites. Cloyne, Kashwakamak and Ompah don't take it. The by-law says residents bring it "during the times prescribed by Council." What each depot accepts is set by its certificate of approval.
The township's own waste and recycling sheet, as it stood in January 2025, gave household hazardous waste a season: May 15 to October 1. If that season still holds, the week that tells residents to recycle their batteries safely opens after the depots have shut for the winter.