By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
Last week, I drove two and a half hours to Versailles to recycle some technology that I really should have been able to recycle closer to home. It wasn’t something uncommon. In fact, I’d guess that most of you have a piece of this tech inside at least one of the items in your home – probably more than one.
If you have a cell phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a power bank (And who doesn’t at this point?) chances are it’s powered by a lithium ion battery. The kind you can recharge over and over to keep your devices going. What makes them so great – the ingredients that allow you to recharge them over and over without significant loss of capacity – also make them difficult to recycle or dispose of.
You aren’t supposed to put them in the garbage, because crushing or puncturing them can cause them to explode. It’s a problem that plagues sanitation workers who risk injury or damage to their garbage trucks when the items are disposed of in the regular trash and inadvertently smashed in their vehicle’s garbage compactor.
Some technology vendors and big box hardware stores will accept undamaged batteries that have lost their capacity to hold a significant charge, or that power obsolete or damaged technology like old cell phones or laptop computers. But while you might find someone nearby who will accept those depleted batteries, what about swollen and damaged batteries? The kind that swells and pops open the cover on your power bank or starts leaking through your old phone.
When you have a battery like that, you have a harder time finding someone to accept them; and for good reason. When these batteries are swollen and damaged, they’re more prone to explosion. They’re fire hazards.
That’s what we were dealing with. My wife had co-opted one of my power banks for charging devices on her desk, and I walked in one day the week prior to notice the power bank had popped open. I thought maybe it had been dropped, and the cover came off. But a quick glance disabused me of that notion. What I was looking at was a swollen lithium ion battery, which had caused the sealed cover to open.
I was also looking at a fire hazard.
So, I removed it from the house, placed it inside a sealed plastic bag, and then put that inside a metal popcorn tin can with kitty litter lining the bottom. After I did that, I began looking for a place to properly dispose of it. See, I knew this was dangerous. I’ve seen plenty of videos of exploding or burning batteries, and I didn’t want this in or around my house any longer than I needed it to be.
Unfortunately, no one else wanted it either. Online guidance suggested contacting my local hazardous waste disposal authority, but we don’t have one in Elliott, Carter, or any of the surrounding counties. The hazardous waste disposal professionals I was able to find either didn’t take items from outside the county, or they didn’t handle lithium ion batteries.
Now, this is where most people would have given up. They’d have tossed it in the trash anyway, despite the risk, and let their waste disposal deal with it. The more adventurous might have set it up on a bare spot or a rock and used it for target practice to see what would happen when the swollen battery was punctured. (I’ve seen the videos. It’s impressive, but scary, and in addition to the potential for explosions and extreme heat/fire, there is a release of toxic gases that you definitely don’t want to experience in a confined space.) Some folks, worried about the risk of fire more than their environment, might even toss them in a local waterway, leading to pollution of the stream. It’s disheartening, but we know we’ve all seen that kind of thing in the past.
I’m not most people, though, and I wasn’t giving up until I found someplace to safely and responsibly dispose of this battery. Thus, I found myself embarking on a five hour round trip to the other side of Lexington.
But, really, this isn’t something anyone should have to do. I know most folks don’t have the time to do this. Most are going to default to the easiest option, even if it isn’t the best. And it’s something our counties and the region should do something to address. If the counties within our development district could get FIVCO to back them in seeking funding, I’m sure we could find solid waste professionals or fire departments in our area who would host fire proof containers where these items could be disposed of properly. Even if they aren’t handled and recycled locally, just having a place to safely and securely store these batteries until they could be collected and taken to a proper recycling facility on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis, would benefit the people of our region.
I honestly believe most folks, given the option, will choose to do what is in the best interest of their friends, neighbors, and the communities and environment we all share.
All we need is for our elected officials to take this idea and run with it. We aren’t talking about a ton of money. We’re talking about a series of fireproof containers, some education, raising awareness, and finding someone who will work with the counties to accept our technology wastes.
Because technology isn’t going anywhere. We’re going to continue to need batteries, and devices, and we’re going to need to do something with them when they reach the end of their life span.
Whether that something is tossing them over the hillside, or taking them to be recycled and disposed of properly, could be as simple as a metal bin at you closest fire department.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
