Why do we have to bring batteries to a specific place to recycle them instead of just being able to throw them out/recycle them at home?
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You can normally toss regular AA and similar batteries in the trash. Check your local municipality for rules.
Car batteries are a completely different chemistry and are full of dangerous and toxic chemicals in liquid form. If you throw them out the garbage truck compactor will promptly squish the battery and burst all these hazardous chemicals all over the place in the truck. The chemicals in different compartments of the matter also react with each other on contact, so could cause a lot of heat or other negative outcomes once they’re allowed to mix.
Lithium batteries contain, well, lithium. This is a highly reactive chemical that will react with oxygen and will react violently with water. If these are crushed in the garbage truck they can cause explosions/fires.
Similar hazards apply when just tossing these in recycling – it’s fine in your recycling can at home but there’s a lot of things that could happen as the recycling truck is loaded up and the recycling is processed that could damage one of these in a way that results in a dangerous failure.
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