dead batteries

Better to be conservative that to flush potash down the drains.

The steel can be reused, I'm not sure what web you're spinning with worse for the environment, but even if you're recycling center does not recycle alkaline batteries doesn't mean that the metal doesn't have value or keeping the potash out of the water supply isn't 'worth it'.

 

A local scrap metal place takes mine . I put them in with my scrap motors , copper , cans , ect.

 

The thing is, people need to be aware that many of the things they throw in a "recycling bin" go directly to the landfill anyway. People in my area are appalled to find out these blue recycling bags the garbage company provides for plastic, glass, and aluminum, they simply separate the aluminum and throw the rest in the landfill because its not economical to do anything else with it.

Pretty likely all these little 1.5 volt Alkaline batteries people think are being recycled are actually just going in the local landfill.
I'm not even sure you can get scrap for them, not enough lead.

Everyone needs to look into this on a local level, make sure you really know if and how shits being recycled before you go patting yourself on the back for all the effort.

 

where i live its ridiculous hard to "properly" recycle/dispose of batteries. our recycling collection was 'integrated' years back, I.E. we have one trash barrel that you put aluminum, paper, cans, plastic bottles all together. i put all of my recyclables in there including batteries. you city guys deal with it... if your sick of flourescent lights and batteries in the recycling trash, then make it as easy to properly dispose of them as paper and plastic, not make people store them for a year until the city finally gets around to holding a one time "hazardous waste collection day" and expect me to show up on some random 4 hour window one saturday with a bag of batteries.

throw them in your municipal recycling waste... they WILL have to deal with them properly.

everywhere is different, in my city a very small amount of the recycling waste-stream goes to land fill. they are required to sort the waste-stream in pretty fine detail.
is it 100% ? no.
on the other hand, a lot of the haz-mat waste stream goes on boats to asia where it is really mishandled...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSWGV3jGek"]Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia - YouTube

 

On recycled metal , its melted down and new stuff is made from it . Tires they grind up and use in parts of the free way, it does give the road way a different feel . On my batteries , a local scrap metal place will take them , it might be that I take him a lot of stuff and only a few batteries .

 

My local Target has a been for used batteries.

 

This is starting to remind me of the Butter thread. However, not anywhere near as awesome.

 

Not necessarily, many municipalitys contract their waste removal. Think garbage mafia imp:lol

Exactly... out of sight, out of mind right?

 

so maybe one of the take home messages that we can agree on is to use batteries less if you can, or to use rechargeables?

 

^^^yep, good message. :2thumbsup:

 

The metal doesn't have any real value. It cost more to process it than what you get out of it. Most of the time they are incinerated by steel companies when making rebar, or other cheap metals. They Melt it down and add the metal to the rebar, not because they get any significant metal from it but because its easy disposal. The companies that strip the metal from the batteries without melting them, lose money doing so. That's why there aren't many around.

And my point was that if your recycling center doesn't process alkaline batteries then they are sent to the landfill, the same place as if you just threw them in the garbage....except using twice the amount of gasoline for transportation as well as wasting man hours on sorting.

In the end....rechargeable batteries are the way to go. You can even buy/make chargers that can recharge normal alkaline batteries a handful of times.

 

Rechargeables are cheaper in the long run too.