I was cleaning our a drawer and found an old cell phone with a swelling battery. I know i can’t/shouldn’t throw it away but because it is swollen recycling seems to be off the table as well. I found a place that would take it but they wanted $150 for the packaging to make it safe to mail.
I’m in north-west Louisiana. How do I get rid of it.
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Chuck them at your enemies?
What happens if you put it back into the drawer and forget about it? Asking for a friend
Put them back in your friend’s drawer and forget about them.
Eat em
OP, this^^^
Best buy takes electronics recycling.
Call your local fire department non-emergency number. I noticed an old device that my kid was using had developed bad battery bulge while on vacation. The fire chief said to bring it to him and they’d dispose of it. If they don’t want it, they should know who locally can safely handle it.
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Search “E-waste near me”
Look up local “Hazardous Waste” and “E-waste” disposal. Some electronics repair shops will take them too.
If its apple product, they will remove the battery and dispose of it for you at their service desk.
Otherwise try a battery store like Batteries Plus.
Best Buy will accept most electronics for recycling.
Start with your city and parish, do either of them run a household hazardous waste recycling center? These places will take chemicals, batteries and other dangerous materials so they don’t end up in the landfill. Sherveport is hosting a dropoff day on July 26: https://www.shreveportgreen.org/community-garden-2-2-1
Also look and see if any local recycling centers will take them. We also have electronic/e-waste collectors in my area.
Lowes or Home Depot might have your back.
Not to hijack your question, but I’m in a similar situation where the Anker power bank I use to charge my phone got recalled because it can apparently cause fires. Lurking here to see how people respond to your question, because I know I shouldn’t just throw it away, and none of the battery recycle places around town will take it because it’s been recalled.
If its recalled don’t you return it for a refund usually?
They didn’t offer that, they only offered a replacement.
Well a replacement is fine as well right? At least, assuming they got rid of the problem in the new one.
Oh I’m thankful for the replacement, I’m just not thrilled with now having to find a way to properly dispose of the faulty one.
Batteries shouldn’t go into garbage because they can and will leak or explode. We have a regular recycling service around here, but they don’t take many kinds of batteries (including lithium ones).
There’s a county “hazardous waste” service that takes things like paint and old fuel for generators. They take some things but not others. There’s also a separate “e-waste” service. Last time I had a few things to drop off, I had to call to find which ones would take a specific type of battery.
I’ve got the same Anker recall. Will be calling around next week to find which place will take them.
I thought that said swallowed batteries at first and had some questions of my own
Oh, another US issue.
(Not being condescending, but oftentimes there are solutions but not in the us. In this case in Germany you have the “wertstoffhof” where you can just bring stuff like that. Cost - if any - depends on location)
We have that in the US too, but condescend away.
It varies from state to state. It isnt across the board. Same here in Canada. My province makes it easy and free. Not all do.
So why the question then?
Why wouldn’t you bring it there by default but ask on the internet?
Edit: thanks for the insightful answers! (also: no hurr durr America stupid here, I’ve been there a few times and won’t generalize. Hence I am always curious to learn more if something like this is mentioned. Learning about each other.)
The Crux of the standard US problem is that nothing is standard.
So you’ll have one person in a county that has its shit together swearing that we’re set and another person from a county that doesn’t have potable water asking for advice.
The capitalist answer is some store have decided there’s money in getting people in to recycle so voluntarily corporate chain stores are the closest we have to a country wide state of handled it.
Nothing against OP, but there’s a lot of people who are completely unaware of their surroundings. Perhaps OP is young, not a homeowner, whatever. The older I get, the more I certainly become aware of these things. The question I asked myself was why come here and not a search engine? But it’s not important, and I think OP got some valid answers here, and hopefully they learned about their community.
As others have said, it’s not across the board. I’m sure there are places in the US where it’s hard to recycle this kind of stuff. Just like I’m sure there are places in Europe where people bury these things in holes in the ground. It’s just the whole “Hurr durr America stupid” thing is old af, and so when I read these jabs I like to talk about how I live in good America, where we have education and social safety nets and electronic recycling.
And the majority of comments I make in this fashion apply fairly broadly to the entirety of the Northeast Corridor, DC to Boston, which is kind of where America started. Just wish there were more northeast corridors, because I do understand and appreciate that some of the criticisms I read are true of portions of the country, and it’s unfortunate.
I have a hazmat disposal center, as well as a recycling center ran by my county a couple miles from me.
Most people here don’t even know it exists, or that it takes most thins at no cost.
