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Comment by _wldu | Hacker News Reader

Off topic... What's the best way to easily recycle these batteries? I normally disassemble my old phones and securely dispose of the chips (for my privacy), but the batteries are glued in with a strong adhesive. Just trying to remove them can start a fire. I think most people just throw the old phones in the trash, but I don't like to do that. It's bad for the environment and potentially dangerous to trash workers.

It seems that phone manufacturers should make the batteries easy to remove, replace and recycle. Not sure why they do not do this.

Home Depot has drop offs for old batteries, but last time I was there they told me they were for power tool batteries only now.

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My local Best Buy takes old electronics for free. Haven't found any other place. The local dump charges per pound. I'm sure most people just throw it all in the trash. Not a good situation we're in - so many things are labeled as requiring special disposal, but there's this sort of wink wink nudge nudge that the labels will be ignored.

Factory reset them then sell them on Facebook or local classifieds.

People will pay good coin for a used phone in good nick. Or a used anything, really. I personally just paid around $50 USD for an iPad Mini 2, and during the pandemic I dropped around $150 USD on a 2015 MacBook with a broken screen.

Some of the stuff people put into hard rubbish blows my mind.

Even if the facilities don't exist we can store them in remote areas right. Maybe put each in a fireproof bag.

I'm not an expert but isn't one huge advantage of batteries is they are mostly solid so unlike c02 which disperses in the air we can store them in one place that doesn't cause harm.

For EV batteries couldn't we just put them in a fire proof, water proof bag or container until the battery is ready for processing

My local waste transfer station has a dropoff for lithium batteries, presumably they send them off to be recycled but who knows.

If you drain the battery to zero charge first I think it's pretty safe

I take mine to the local dump. They have an electronics recycling drop off, which is free.

My city has a recycling center for household products, but it requires the use of a motor vehicle. I have been unsuccessful in using taxi or ride-sharing services to drop off items. Unfortunately, the inflexible vehicle requirement is a deal breaker for me and many of my neighbors.

> it requires the use of a motor vehicle

as in "it's miles away from the next bus stop, so walking is impractical", or as in "if you don't show up in a motor vehicle, we don't let you in"?

Probably out of town. And even in town, it's one thing to walk to it with a dead phone and another to walk with a dead TV :)

Some recycling centres in my country don't allow entry on foot. They'll allow entry on a motorbike, don't know about a bicycle.

I speculate it's because they often have hours-long queues, and people in cars might decide to park and walk past the queue, if it was allowed, which could get chaotic.

Or perhaps the rules were just written by someone who hadn't considered non-car-owners.

A lot of them also do curbside recycling once or twice a year for electronics and large appliances. Mine does, but I don't like batteries sitting around where I'll forget about them and my local dump is right across the street from a Home Depot, so I drop them off when I usually go to Home Depot.

In Norway most supermarkets have a box for used batteries, broken light bulbs, fluorescent tubes as well as a reverse vending machine for drinks cans and bottles.

Shops that sell electrical goods (computers, audiovisual, cookers, etc.) have to be willing to accept electrical goods for recycling even if they don't sell that specific model or even brand. So a lot more people are within a reasonable distance of a place to recycle quite a few things.

Perhaps stores elsewhere could do the same.

Also, I think Wallmart and Sam's club have recycling collection points.

Just consider the whole phone to be the 'battery case'.

I dropped off my last lithium laptop battery at Best Buy.

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