Batteries

toc =308 Battery Recycling =

Considering the problems caused by electronic waste, one should ponder as to what they can do to help the situation. One thing you can do is give your batteries to class 308 to be sent to an e-waste (a.k.a. electronic waste) recycling plant. While we will not accept alkaline batteries, we will accept the following kinds of **__Non-rechargeable Batteries__**:
 * Silver Oxide Batteries (Found in calculators, watches, and cameras)
 * Zinc-air Batteries (Found in hearing aids, pagers, cameras)
 * Lithium Batteries (Found in computers and cameras)

We also will accept the following kinds of **__Rechargeable Batteries__**:
 * Lead-Acid Batteries (Found in electric tools and camcorders)
 * Nickel-Cadmium Batteries (Found in smoke alarms, electric tools, and household appliances)
 * Nickel-Zinc Batteries (Found in cellular and cordless phones, cordless power tools, laptop computers, PDAs, two-way radios, camcorders, and toys)

=**//Batteries - Why Recycle? //**=
 * Almost everyone uses and discards batteries into the waste stream. Although waste batteries are a small amount of the solid waste stream, they are a concentrated source of some types of heavy metals. The main constituents of concern for human health and the environment include: cadmium, lead and mercury.**

= Household Battery Fact Sheet = **Americans purchase over four billion dry cell batteries every year. This table shows the most common household batteries:**



= Environmental Hazards of Batteries = = = = = **People are using more and more household batteries. The average person owns about two button batteries, ten normal (A, AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, etc.) batteries, and throws out about eight household batteries per year. About three billion batteries are sold annually in the U.S. averaging about 32 per family or ten per person. A battery is an electrochemical device with the ability to convert chemical energy to electrical energy to provide power to electronic devices. Batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel, which can contaminate the environment when batteries are improperly disposed of. When incinerated, certain metals might be released into the air or can concentrate in the ash produced by the combustion process. **

**Batteries may produce the following potential problems or hazards:**  **In landfills, heavy metals have the potential to leach slowly into soil, groundwater or surface water. Dry cell batteries contribute about 88 percent of the total mercury and 50 percent of the cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. In the past, batteries accounted for nearly half of the mercury used in the United States and over half of the mercury and cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. When burned, some heavy metals such as mercury may vaporize and escape into the air, and cadmium and lead may end up in the ash. **