Helping to install and sort through old technology has raised a spectre that I’ve rarely thought of before. There is one place that almost everyone has in their home that they spend absolutely no time thinking about. Somewhere in your house you have a box with some sort of gadget: a box of remote controls, a few alarm clocks, perhaps an old music player or two. Hidden in these little bits of convenience technology is usually a pair of batteries. These cells just lay around for years and nobody pays them any mind, everyone but of course chemistry. Chemistry knows full well, and when it goes along with time, hand in hand, it’s sometimes a recipe for some really hazardous consequences.
Alkaline battery cells that are very old will tend to leak battery acid. This is really not good for anyone, nor the environment. These little caches of chemical consequence lay inert and placid for a very long time. They are almost always stored in pretty tit plastic housing containers where time, gravity, and chemistry can really work their wonders on them. When you open up one of these old gadgets you might discover an oozing corroded leaking alkaline battery cell. Getting this cleaned up can be a challenge if it has progressed far enough. So, if you happen to have a box of these battery-powered gadgets laying about that you won’t ever really use again or won’t for a very long time, please take the alkaline battery cells out of these devices!
Just throwing them in the bin is not enough either. These cells really need to be recycled. If you have a glass jar or a plastic bin, store all the dead or questionable alkaline battery cells there until you eventually take them to a battery recycler. In Michigan we have a chain called BatteryPlus and they accept recycled batteries of any type gladly and for free. BestBuy also provides a battery recycling collection program as well if you can’t get to a BatteryPlus location. At the least you really shouldn’t just toss these cells into the trash – the chemicals they are made out of aren’t good for anything. Not good for birds at might come into contact with the cells in a landfill and not good for any amphibian that might find itself in runoff water from a landfill. It’s corrosive, it’s harmful, and it is likely waiting silently for you in your very own basement or junk drawer.
If you work in a business or run one, one of the best things you can do for the environment is to sponsor a battery recycling collection point. I do this at my workplace. I found a useless plastic index card box, slapped a label on it and told everyone to please use it. People, if told that a recycling depot is handy will use it! My recycling bin at work fills up every few weeks with an assortment of dead cells in various states of decay. On my way along I carry this box of hazardous waste off to BatteryPlus. They greet me with a smile and thanks for recycling. It’s good for the environment and takes almost zero thought and nearly zero investment. The rewards, birds and frogs that aren’t poisoned are all you need to see to know you’ve done the right thing.