Recycling batteries and cell phones

July 11 , 2003

Dear Marti,

I have a bunch of flashlight-type batteries. Is it OK to throw them out?

Thanks, Sandy

Dear Sandy,

Batteries do tend to multiply like rabbits—maybe THAT’s what that drum-banging bunny in the battery ads is all about. They wind up as the scourge of many a junk drawer, rolling around in that no-man’s land where we put everything we just can’t bear to throw away.

It is important to keep batteries out of your garbage. Household alkaline batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9-volt, and 6-volt) pose a long-term problem for landfills because of the corrosive potassium hydroxide they contain. We don’t like corrosives in landfills because they can contribute to the degradation of the landfill linings intended to prevent the contents of landfills from leaking into the soil and groundwater. Not too long ago, alkaline batteries were a concern because they contained mercury, but thankfully that is no longer the case. It’s their corrosive properties that are the main problem today.

Unfortunately, there is no local option for properly disposing of alkaline batteries. Only alkaline batteries can be safely discarded in the trash in small quantities. To avoid the proliferation of batteries in your trash, consider rechargeable batteries.

Rechargeable household batteries, including nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd), nickel metal hydride (Ni-Mh), and lithium ion (Li) batteries, are bad news in landfills because they contain heavy metals such as cadmium. These heavy metals combine with water and organic solvents to produce the toxic leachate that can leak out of landfills and threaten groundwater. But rechargeables are still the best alternative since they are reusable so many times and at the end of their lives they are more recyclable than disposable alkaline batteries.

Rechargeables are an investment (you need to buy a recharger as well as the batteries), but over time you recoup your costs, and you put a stop to your junk drawer battery breeding problem.

Rechargeable batteries and any non-alkaline batteries such as button batteries can be safely disposed of through the Boulder County Household Hazardous Waste Program at 5880 Butte Mill Rd., Boulder. They’re open from 8am to 3:30pm Wednesdays and 8am to noon Fridays and Saturdays. You can also take worn-out rechargeable batteries of all types to any Radio Shack store.

 

Dear Marti,

What can I do with cell phones? My wife and I do a lot business on the road, and between the two of us we have five useless cell phones. We changed service plans, so we had to get new phones. It’s ridiculous.

Signed, Rick S.

 

Dear Rick,

You’re right. Cell phones are the perfect example of a product created with an amazing modern technology but designed for an archaic disposal system—the landfill. Because they are not designed for reuse and durability, cell phones, computers, and other electronic products are creating a high-tech trash problem.

According to INFORM, a non-profit environmental research organization, a staggering 130 million cell phones are taken out of service each year in the US. The prospect of these phones winding up in a landfill is a significant environmental concern since they, like all electronics with a circuit board, contain toxic metals and substances such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic that can contaminate the groundwater when landfilled.

So what’s to be done? Most importantly, cell phone manufacturers need to make their products fully modernized by designing htem for the environment, not for the dump. (Eco-Cycle is working to make that happen).

In the meantime, you can bring your defunct mobile phones to the Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHaRM). There is no charge to drop them off. In fact, cell phones are one of the few items at the CHaRM that are profitable to market, so they serve as a kind of fundraiser for the program. Phones collected at the CHaRM are either refurbished and reused or dismantled into their constituent parts and recycled.

Click here for a map to the CHaRM, or give us a call (hopefully not while you’re driving) at (303) 444-6634 for directions.