Recycling batteries

[Coldicote]

I use ordinary AA and AAA batteries for several purposes and generally save them for recycling, but it's very tempting to chuck the odd one in the bin. Does anyone know why it's so important (if it is) to recycle them?

[SIRandyraven]

I always just bin mine.

[bert_h]

It makes the landfill dump toxic, instead of merely rubbishy, and that will hugely delays the re-use of the site a century or two down the line.

[ubasses]

Some household batteries contain chemicals like lead, mercury or cadmium. If batteries are thrown into your normal rubbish bin, they are likely to end up in landfill. Once buried, the batteries start to break down and can leak some of these chemicals into the ground. This can cause soil and water pollution, which may be a health risk for humans.

Recycling stops batteries going to landfill and helps recover thousands of tonnes of metals, including valuable metals like nickel, cobalt and silver. This reduces the need to mine new materials, cutting CO2 emissions and saving resources.

from the Gov web site

[boxtops]

We save ours up and put them in the battery box at the tip - but a lot of shops have a battery box on the till, I know Aldi does, and I think our Tesco does too.

[chi-chi66]

Same as boxtops.....Save them, put into a small bag each time you change
a battery, and take them to Asda or Sainsbury, they have a collection bin
usually near the checkouts.

[marval]

Our Sainsbury store has a battery collection, but our council have given everyone a bag to collect them in.

[Coldicote]

Thank you all for these interesting answers,especially about recovery of valuable metals and pollution effect on land and water. I've some recollection of it being a legal requirement that shops selling batteries have to provide a recycling facility, but I don't recall the details or reasons.

[robert551069]

As well as keeping batteries separate from the normal household refuse, it is important to keep aerosols separate too. I think that they explode if refuse is burnt.

[Coldicote]

Thanks Robert. That makes sense but I'm not aware of any particular recycling arrangement.

[boxtops]

I'd forgotten that, when our recycling bins arrived they gave us a little bag for batteries - but we keep a separate small bin outside for Misc recycling that we have to take to the tip (small electricals etc) so the batteries just go in there, with the light bulbs, odd bits of metal, etc.