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Recycling your batteries saves natural resources and keeps batteries and their sometimes toxic components out of the waste stream.

How to recycle your batteries

Recycling your spent batteries may not be as difficult as you think. If you're lucky, your community recycling program will accept them with the rest of your recyclables (just be sure to confirm that they're sent for recycling and not to a hazardous waste landfill). Those without recycling options through curbside pickup: check out these tips for how to find recycling facilities in your community.

Regular batteries (non-rechargeables)

Single-use household batteries known as alkaline, carbon-zinc, lithium, silver-zinc, and zinc air batteries are the most common type of battery used, by far. Mercury was once an important component in these batteries, but since the 1980s battery manufacturers have reduced their use of mercury by more than 98 percent.[1] Thinking this reduction in mercury has rendered alkaline batteries harmless, they are now accepted at landfills which once turned them away, and refused by recycling centers, too! As a result, finding a way to get them recycled can be a bit challenging.

But never fear! GreenYour has you covered with these ideas for finding a single-use battery recycling program in your area:

• Batteries are sometimes collected during hazardous household waste days. Check with your town or city to see if they've got an upcoming roundup day.
• Check out National Recycling Coalition - State Recycling Resources website for programs running throughout the year.
• Earth 911 has nationwide battery recycling listings.
• Many shops that replace watch or hearing batteries (that contain mercury, silver, cadmium, lithium or other heavy metals) will accept used batteries for recycling.

Rechargeable recycling

Rechargeable batteries (Ni-MH, Ni-Cd, Small Sealed Lead (Pb) and LI-ON) are environmentally preferable to single use batteries because their life is so much longer, but they, too, have toxic heavy metals that should be handled with care. Of the rechargeables it’s most important to recycle nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries and small sealed lead (Pb) batteries found in alarm systems and emergency lighting due to the hazardous lead or cadmium they contain. But the more widely-used nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium ion (LI-ON) rechargeables can also be recycled.

Rechargeable batteries can be dropped off free of charge at more than 30,000 locations nationwide through a group called the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC). Use their collection site locator online or call 1-800-8-BATTERY to find the closest retail collection site.

Last ditch effort

If there are no battery recycling options in your community some companies will recycle your batteries for a fee (share the cost with friends!) including alkaline (the kind most people use and which many communities don’t recycle) as well as rechargeable batteries.

• The Big Green Box charges $58 for a 43-pound box of batteries.
• Battery Solutions Inc. charges 85 cents per pound of batteries.

Recycling your batteries helps you go green because…

• Fewer batteries in the waste stream means reduced amounts of toxic constituents of batteries (mercury, cadmium, lead) that may make their way into the air, soil, groundwater and surface water and potentially harm human health.
• Natural resources are saved as metal and other materials are reused.

The amount of batteries that reach landfills each year is equal in weight to almost 6,000,000 desktop computers.[2] Recycling batteries keeps their heavy metals out of landfills and the air, the most toxic of which is lead, cadmium, and mercury with silver, zinc, and nickel following close behind. While almost all batteries can be recycled, most are tossed into the trash. These metals can be recycled numerous times saving a lot of energy in the process; remelting metals uses 45 to 90 percent less energy compared to making metal from ore.[3]

The variety of batteries needed to juice up Americans’ plethora of on-the-go devices complicates the issue of battery disposal. Available in a variety of shapes, sizes, and compositions, from tiny button batteries in hearing aids to clunky D flashlight batteries to the sophisticated batteries that power laptops and PDAs, batteries are a diverse lot. Yet despite this challenge, the RBRC reports collecting more than 5.6 million pounds of rechargeable batteries in 2006.[4]

Controversies

Eighty percent of all batteries manufactured or more than 10 billion produced annually worldwide, are alkaline, the common, disposable household batteries that most people use.[5] Collection and recycling of these batteries varies by community but since manufacturers have redesigned the batteries to reduce the use of mercury by over 98 percent they are often classified as non-hazardous and residents are advised to throw them away in their trash.[6] Some believe that disposing of alkaline batteries in landfills creates a long-term problem due to the corrosive potassium hydroxide they contain that can contribute to the degradation of the landfill linings that keeps the contents from leaking into soil and groundwater.

In the last five years the technology has become available to recycle alkaline batteries and limited recycling of them is taking place. California has recently classified all batteries as hazardous waste and is recycling some alkaline batteries.

External links

• Batteries Digest - Alkaline Battery Recycling
• California Integrated Waste Management Board - Batteries
• Earth 911 - How to Recycle and Properly Dispose of Batteries
• Grinning Planet - If I Had A Nickel-Metal-Hydride for Every Time I Recycled
• INFORM - Community Waste Prevention Toolkit: Battery Fact Sheet
• Montana Department of Environmental Quality - Battery Recycling
• Obvious Implentations Corporation - The Consumer Recycling Guide: Recycling More Obscure Materials
• Recycle This - What Can I Recycle?
• US Environmental Protection Agency - Municipal Solid Waste, Batteries