Do You Recycle Batteries?

I'm so confused! I read an article the other day about battery recycling that threw everything I had ever heard about it out the window. To recycle or not to recycle. Which is it?

The article said that rechargeable batteries and button cell batteries can and should be recycled. All other single use batteries? These can be tossed in a landfill. Confused? Me too! This article was from a very reliable source and after reading it, I decided to do some research on battery recycling because this new information goes against everything I know about it.

Have you ever heard of the Battery Act of 1996? I wasn't even born when this was signed into law, so that is my excuse for having never heard of it. Okay, that's really no excuse, is it? I mean, Mom wasn't around for the Revolutionary War but she's heard of and is familiar with it.

The purpose of the Battery Act was twofold: phase out the use of mercury in batteries, and provide for the efficient and cost-effective collection and recycling or proper disposal of used nickel cadmium (NiCad) batteries, small sealed lead-acid (SSLA) batteries, and certain other regulated batteries. Rechargeable batteries and SSLA batteries contain toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, and lead that are not harmful to humans while the batteries are being used but can cause seriuous harm if not properly disposed. If these batteries end up a landfill, the heavy metals can slowly leach into the soil and water. Yuk! If burned, the heavy metals will end up in air. This is not good either.

So what about single use batteries? Single use batteries such as AAA, AA, A, C & D no longer contain mercury due to the Battery Act, so they are not toxic by themselves. They do contain a metal (steel) casing, so they can technically be recycled with scrap metal, but they must be completely dead (fully discharged) prior to recycling. So we are suppose to recycle them right? Yes, according to the EPA's website that said several reclamation companies now process these batteries.

After the batteries have been collected, they are shredded and neutralized in an acid bath. The material is then run through a kiln to be dried and pressed into magnetic bricks, which are then transported to a steel mill for processing. At the steel mill, they are placed in the furnace where zinc is fumed off into a vacuum baghouse, recovered, and sold as zinc-oxide. The manganese dioxide is then used to in the production of re-bar steel.

But who are these reclamation companies and where are their drop-off locations? Through my research I only found companies that charge a fee for a battery shipping container plus a fee for the shipping itself. Mom used to deposit her batteries in the zoo's collection containers, but I have no idea what happened to them after Mom dropped them off. I am going to email the zoo to find out who recycles the batteries.

Button batteries can be taken back by electronics retailers, hearing aid stores, hospitals, jewelers, or pharmacies for recycling. That's good news. If you have rechargeable batteries, you can search Call2Recycle to find a recycling location near you. Call2Recycle is the only free rechargeable battery and cell phone collection program in North America. Since 1994, Call2Recycle has diverted 50 million pounds of rechargeable batteries from landfills and established a network of 30,000 recycling drop-off points.

The EPA estimates that on average each person in the U.S. discards eight single use batteries per year. A great alternative is to purchase rechargeable batteries and a recharger. Rechargeables last longer, reduce waste, save money, can be recycled, etc. The list just goes on. They are truly better for the environment and they are much better than they used to be years ago.

I'm still a little confused about single use battery disposal because some research I found claimed that single use batteries are not even recycled despite recycling efforts. This is due in large part because the process of recycling is cost prohibitive for the small amount of recoverable material available in each battery. I am going to do more research on this because I don't want to put anything in a landfill that can be recycled. If you have any information about their disposal, please leave it in your comments. All of us want to do the right thing, so we must all work together to get to the bottom of this.