What to do With Old Lithium-Ion Batteries

You may not even realize how many lithium-ion batteries you have sitting around in your home or at your business. Your cell phones and laptops are the obvious sources, but there are many different applications that use lithium-ion power. If you have a lot of these devices or even these batteries lying around doing nothing, it may cause you to wonder what to do with old lithium-ion batteries and lithium-ion-powered devices. Sadoff E-Recycling & Data Destruction may just have your idea solution.

Can You Recycle Lithium Ion Batteries?

Lithium-ion batteries are comprised of several metals including cobalt, nickel, copper, and aluminum all of which are highly recyclable! If you bring your lithium-ion batteries to a properly equipped facility, they can recover many of those metals.

Not only do we want to recover metals, but we also want to keep them from ending up in landfills where they can poison groundwater and generally be harmful to the environment. While you are at it, this goes for all other electronics as well! Not only is it good for the environment to keep electronics out of landfills, but it also means less mining further reducing human-caused destruction of the environment and a lot of fossil fuel burning in the process.

Read More: E-Recycling vs Mining

Despite our reliance on electronics that utilize lithium-ion battery technology, lithium-ion battery recycling is still very much in its infancy. This means that they are not designed with recycling in mind which makes the recycling process expensive and wasteful.

What Types of Devices Have Litinium Ion Batteries

These days, unless you have a device that’s running on traditional alkaline batteries—the lettered ones like AAs—or watch batteries—the small coin-shaped batteries—chances are your device is powered by a lithium-ion battery.

Of course, this means your cell phone and your laptop are lithium-ion powered, but there are others too. Game controllers, tablets, wireless mice, wireless keyboards, cordless power tools,  and more all typically have lithium-ion batteries. If it’s rechargeable and you plug it in, chances are there’s a lithium-ion power cell involved.

However, many of these batteries are difficult to remove, especially without damaging other components. Modern cell phones and even laptops often lack a removable battery these days, but they still have a battery buried in their internals. Skipping the removable feature allows for more sealed systems when it comes to phones allowing for better waterproofing and for laptops it just makes construction lighter, easier, and cheaper.

Where to Recycle Lithium Batteries and Electronics

Whether you have loose lithium-ion batteries or electronics that employ lithium-ion batteries in their internals, you can bring them all into Sadoff E-Recycling & Data Destruction. You don’t have to worry about trying to remove the batteries either if you just want to get rid of the whole device. We can recycle pretty much any electronic and with your help we can make the world a greener place! Whether you are a local near one of our Wisconsin or Nebraska locations or a U.S. business with a large quantity of electronics that need recycling, the team at Sadoff E-Recycling and Data Destruction can help. Reach out to us today!

Categorized in: Electronics Recycling