Taping recycled batteries

[johnridley]

Ugh, what a PITA. There's a new law that recycled batteries must have both ends taped before dropping them in recycling. Apparently there have been fires during transportation due to batteries shorting and discharging.

If people would actually test their damn batteries and use the ones that aren't dead, that probably wouldn't happen. A large percentage of the batteries I pull from the recycling pile here at work are still in pretty good shape, many still practically new. People just grab 4 random AA cells from their junk drawer, put them in a device, and when it stops working, they toss all the cells. Lots of times there's one dead flat battery and 3 good ones in there.

Comments

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... it seems that to comply, one _could_ put similarly sized batteries (really, any of not non-button ones) together in a bag, having taped around them so that a + could not intersect a -, and then put all of those into a baggie. We are already supposed to segregate by battery type and enclose each type in a separate baggie.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, like most laws, it does not require you to do a sensible thing, it requires you to comply. The only listed alternative to taping is to put each battery INDIVIDUALLY into a sealed plastic bag.

For instance, throwing all the batteries into a tub of salt water overnight would be fine too, they'd all be discharged completely. But there'd be no way to prove that had been done except for individually testing each battery.

In reality I was at Ann Arbor Recycling last week and only about half the batteries were taped. There was nobody enforcing the rule.