Let’s face it, batteries are rubbish: The environmental and economic costs of battery disposal

On the larger side of the waste collection spectrum, the Solid Waste Services Department (SWS) of Charlotte, North Carolina, faced the challenge of planning 2,000 daily routes for their 15 vehicle fleet. This used to take them six man-hours per day. Now it only takes two, and each truck and driver is specifically equipped to handle their routes efficiently.

Let’s face it, batteries are rubbish

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When you're not using your iPhone, place the handset face down. The device automatically detects this placement, and won't light up the display when alerts are received, saving you some extra battery life.

The Catch: Lets face it, compared to most junk and debris removal services this is not easy, fast, and convenient!? You are making a trip out to get a bag, you are carrying all your unwanted junk, debris, and unwanted furniture 20-30+ feet from where its all currently at (probably a few stairs involved), then the call scheduling the pickup, supervising the pickup, calling to make a payment.. An average of 4 to 8 total hours and $220+ all to get rid of a little more than a pickup trucks worth of junk?! NOT CONVENIENT!

The Catch: They will not accept all of this!? HAZMAT, paint, televisions, any electronics in general, air conditioners, refrigerators, appliances, yard waste, regular food trash and garbage?? They also want you to handle the recycling of tires, batteries, glass, metals, paper & plastic products, and light bulbs because they don't take it. They also will not allow you to load up yard waste (although they say Bagster is good for yard cleanups??)

Other items not allowed in the trash carts include, but are not limited to: explosives/fireworks, radioactive materials, animal remains, paint, solvents, glue, car batteries, automotive parts, tires, acids, antifreeze, gasoline, gas cans, motor vehicle fluids, liquid propane gas tanks, chemicals, cooking oils, household hazardous waste, pesticides, medical waste, exposed needles, cement, sand, rocks, bricks, soil, infectious waste, poisons, asbestos, shellac, tar, tree stumps, tires, and large amounts of remodeling or demolition materials.

Place carts on the easement in front of your home, between the sidewalk and the curb, spaced three feet apart after 5 p.m. the night before or by 7 a.m. on your trash collection day. City contractors are not obligated to return if carts or other materials are not out for service by 7 am on your trash day. The handles of your carts should face the house. The serial number side should face the street.

Also accepted will be antifreeze, motor oil, automotive and dry cell batteries, fluorescent bulbs, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, thermostats, computer monitors, CPUs, printers, keyboards, cell phones, and televisions.

Many reviews were published about SWM in developed and developing countries and about environmental contamination from waste. In particular, about char fuel production [20], management of waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) [21], food waste management [22] and treatment [23], recycling of used batteries [24], inclusion of the informal sector [25] and the risks that such activity pose for vulnerable informal workers [26], atmospheric pollution due to SWM [27], household hazardous waste management [28] and healthcare waste (HW) management [29], among others. The novelty of the narrative review presented in this article is its focus on the integrated assessment of these waste streams, analyzing the global issues affecting the environment and the public health, giving attention to the operational risk of the informal recycling sector. Concentration of contamination in water, air and soil are provided, as well as waste quantities and amounts dumped in developing cities or recycled by the informal sector. Results allow suggesting directions for future SWM improvements, considering its planning as an integrated system and providing examples of the consequences of its inadequate implementation.

In Cambodia, in the capital city Phnom Penh, where the MSW management (MSWM) system lacks regulation, households commonly burned, buried, or dumped about 361,000 tons of MSW in 2008, and 635,000 tons in 2015 [40]. In Thailand, more than 60% of the SW final disposal was carried out by open dumping. In 2004 there were 425 disposal sites, of which 330 open dumps, the majority of disposal sites received around 25 tons of waste per day, while only the landfills of Bangkok received about 4500 tons per day [41]. In the West Bank Palestinian territory, in 2005 was estimated that the MSW generated was about 2728 t per day, while in 2001 there were 133 MSW dumpsites, open burning activities at 116 sites and burial at 13 sites; 64.9% of the population was aware of the environmental issues and impacts associated with open dumpsites, and 41.6% thought that they were suffering from the final disposal sites [42]. In Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, more than 250,000 tons of waste were generated per year in 2010. There were four major disposal sites under its management, closed in 2005 due to odors, air pollution and burning wastes at the site. Moreover, percolation of leachate from the buried waste flowed to the surface, especially during rainy seasons [43]. In Maputo, administrative center of Mozambique, with about 1,200,000 inhabitants and where about 0.5 kg of waste per inhabitants are generate daily, the MSW is transported to the official dumpsite of the city, in operation since more than 40 years. The area is of about 17 ha, with heights that achieved 15 m; open fires and auto ignition of the waste are common issues, exacerbated by the more than 500 waste pickers collecting recyclables waste at the dumpsite [44]. Therefore, SWM issues are common worldwide, with environmental burdens and hazard for the population.

About 80% of marine litter generation is mainly caused by the mainland, by the rivers that inflow into the seas [67]. Therefore, open dumping can be considered as the first cause of pollution of the oceans. More hazardous is the generation of micro-plastics: Once in the ocean, most plastics tend to stay at or close to the surface where the photo-chemical, mechanical and biological processes degrade larger items into smaller, less than 5 mm, forming microplastics [68]. Potentially, microplastics are ingested when present in the marine environment and tend to float on the sea surface. There, they can be ingested passively or actively by a wide range of organisms [69]. A simple scheme has been provided by do Sul et al. [69], where the definition of direct or indirect ingestion of micro-plastic, which can affect human health, is clarified (Figure 2).

Together with WEEE mismanagement, used batteries should be also mentioned. For instance, in Iran, almost 10,000 tons of household batteries were imported, most of them have been discarded in MSW without any separation and sent to sanitary landfills [99]. In addition to environmental and human health risks associated with unsafe disposal of used batteries in MSW stream, their landfilling implies the depletion of valuable resources. It is expected that more than 9000 tons of used batteries have been dumped in municipal landfills of Iran in recent decades. The most concern regarding battery disposal in MSW is directed to the high percentage of mercury, cadmium, lithium, nickel, arsenic and other toxic and heavy metals [99].

The challenges facing the developing countries in WEEE and used batteries management include the absence of infrastructure for appropriate waste management, lack of legislation dealing specifically with these waste fractions, the absence of any framework for end-of-life product take-back or implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) [100]. Moreover, the growing rate of WEEE amount in developing countries is destined to increase in the next future [101]: A great amount (almost 50%) of current WEEE yearly generated by developed countries continues to be illegally transferred in developing countries, volumes that remains unknown; New electric and electronic products will substitute soon the current ones, influencing both collected volumes, type of recovered materials and recycling processes; Innovative materials composing WEEE, that are currently not correctly managed during their end-of-life (ending into landfills); some electronic parts in WEEE are not again correctly disassembled or recovered [101]. In summary, many challenging issues of WEEE and used batteries management can be detected in developing countries [102]:

And third, if you've got Android 10 or higher, look in that same area of your system settings for the Dark Theme option. Darker colors tend to consume less power than the bright hues present in most interfaces by default, so switching to the Dark Theme either all the time or even just on a sunset-to-sunrise schedule should extend your phone's battery a fair bit.

The report, This is what we die for: Human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo power the global trade in cobalt, traces the sale of cobalt, used in lithium-ion batteries, from mines where children as young as seven and adults work in perilous conditions.

Miners working in areas from which CDM buys cobalt face the risk of long-term health damage and a high risk of fatal accidents. At least 80 artisanal miners died underground in southern DRC between September 2014 and December 2015 alone. The true figure is unknown as many accidents go unrecorded and bodies are left buried in the rubble.

Amnesty International researchers also found that the vast majority of miners spend long hours every day working with cobalt without the most basic of protective equipment, such as gloves, work clothes or facemasks to protect them from lung or skin disease.

Amnesty International and Afrewatch are calling on multinational companies who use lithium-ion batteries in their products to conduct human rights due diligence, investigate whether the cobalt is extracted under hazardous conditions or with child labour, and be more transparent about their suppliers. 2ff7e9595c