Lead-acid Batteries & Cancer – Your health and battery disposal. Health Concerns with Batteries – Your health and battery disposal. Due to this new law, people can now use smaller batteries, such as single-use alkaline batteries, without fear of Mercury poisoning.
I 1996, the government introduced legislation that banned Mercury from use in batteries because of its highly toxic nature, especially in vapor form. Another toxic metal that can be found in batteries is lead, which has been linked to severe medical issues like developmental & neurological damage and congenital disabilities. When these agents interact with our air and water, we risk developing cancerous disabilities. Carcinogens are any substance, radiation, or radionuclide that acts as an agent that causes cancer. Improper Lead Battery Recycling – Tackling the problems.Ģ) Improperly disposed batteries negatively affect human health.Įxposing the environment to lead and strong corrosive acids found in batteries can cause burns and dangers to our eyes and skin.According to the Agency for Toxic Substance & Disease Registry, toxic metals like nickel and cadmium found in batteries are known human carcinogens. The vaporized form of improperly exposed batteries also gets trapped in the atmosphere and pollutes lakes and streams in the form of rain.Ĭommon Household Batteries – Proper disposal tips. As a result, the toxic chemicals released into the air negatively affect our breathing and contribute to global warming. Did you also know that improperly disposed lithium batteries can be very unstable? Lithium batteries can cause landfill fires that can smolder for many years. This means that when we drink from tap water faucets, we could be ingesting dangerous metals. Our ecosystems, which contain thousands of aquatic plants and animals, are compromised when filled with battery chemicals. As batteries corrode, their chemicals soak into soil and contaminate groundwater and surface water. When depleted batteries are tossed into the trash, they end up in landfills where they decay and leak. If you’re wondering what adverse effects batteries can have on our environment, here are 5 facts you should know about batteries and our environment.ġ) Improperly disposed batteries contribute to water and air pollution. Each battery contains hazardous, toxic and corrosive materials like mercury, cadmium, lithium, and lead. While throwing away batteries may seem harmless, it can have dire effects on the environment. Once this electrical circuit is depleted, batteries should be safely disposed, but millions of batteries are tossed into the trash by consumers every year. The opposite ends of a battery, known as the anode and the cathode, generate an electrical circuit that conducts power to an electronic device. Batteries power our toys and gadgets by converting chemical energy into electrical energy. These electronics include cell phones, laptops, and digital cameras. This demand stems from the fact that billions of people carry electronics that consume electricity. There has been a massive increase in the demand for batteries, as well as an evolution and history of the battery. This resource has been added to GSI’s website as a special courtesy to the students of Ms.
Please contact him at with questions.***Note: All content and images are credited to Intella Lift Parts. Written by GreenCitizen staff writer Jake Hanft. You can also search for more battery recycling centers in our very own Green Directory, a nationwide search engine for recycling virtually any time across the United States. The EHSO website has a wealth of information on for consumers, though it can be somewhat difficult to navigate. They have a special page for batteries where you can look at an interactive map of battery recycling sites near you. Bring ‘em in to our Berkeley, San Francisco, or Palo Alto locations, along with any electronics you would like to recycle (we do not accept batteries at our Burlingame location).Īdditionally, the following national businesses accept batteries for recycling in the Bay Area.įor readers outside the Bay Area, a helpful resource is the Environment, Health, and Safety Online website. That’s it for the side salad of background information. Fortunately, California has made significant strides in this area in the past decade, and now we have a solid network of places that accept batteries for recycling. It is illegal to throw batteries in the trash in California, as the chemicals in batteries, especially lead, leek out and contaminate our soil and drinking water when placed in landfills. Of these, approximately 497,000,000 were not recycled, according to the Household Universal Waste Generation in California report. In 2001, around 500,000,000 batteries were bought in California.