Battery Doom
Have you ever taken the dead batteries out of your remote and just placed them in the trash? This is something many of us never think about – a simple dead battery.
The good news is, the basic alkaline and zinc carbon batteries, the good old-fashioned non-rechargeable ones, do not pose a significant health or environmental risk to humans – the hazardous materials were removed from the manufacturing of them in 1994. Alkaline and zinc carbon batteries pass the EPA’s test for hazardous waste. Systems for collecting batteries may have a greater detrimental environmental impact than the environmental benefits gained from recycling, according to the UK Department of Trade and Industry. The main issue with recycling theses batteries is we currently don’t have effective technology and collection systems available that do not add a disproportionate environmental burden.
Now on to those rechargeable batteries in your cordless phone, toothbrush, laptop, and car – they are not quite the same. Most of the batteries found in those applications contain some hazardous materials, such as nickel cadmium, mercury and lead acid batteries.
Many manufacturers identify the batteries that contain hazardous materials so you know not to place them in the trash. The identification may be in the owner’s manual or on the battery itself. For products with the battery sealed within the device, they may have a crossed out trash can etched on the outside of the device itself.
As a home owner with limited recycling outlets for batteries, what do we do with all the depleted batteries? Well the good news is many electronic stores have collection locations for the hazardous batteries, and other options like Battery Solutions can be found across the internet. As the technology starts to improve, we should see less and less hazardous and non-hazardous batteries entering the landfills.
