How to Dispose of Laptop Battery

If you toss old laptop batteries in the garbage, they wind up in a garbage dump. The problem is, they consist of dangerous materials such as mercury, cadmium and lead. These harmful substances damage the environment and enter the food chain, adversely affecting plants, animals and ultimately people. Some states, such as California, classify batteries as contaminated materials and need residents to recycle them. Even if your state does not have battery disposal guidelines, you can do your bit for the environment by recycling your old laptop batteries.

How to Dispose Properly of Laptop Batteries

How to Dispose of Laptop Battery

Use Local Recycling Services

You may have the ability to use district or county recycling services to deal with your laptop batteries. Typically, you can recycle batteries at designated regional retailers, recreation center, town halls, authorities and fire departments, libraries or waste disposal centers. You can find details on regional services on state, county or city sites, or ask at your town library.

Recycle Batteries in Stores

Some states require certain retailers to recycle rechargeable batteries at no cost to customers. New york city state, for instance, has a rechargeable battery law. Citizens can take laptop batteries into any store that offers these batteries, or the equipment that uses them, for recycling. Merchants have to accept the batteries even if you didn’t purchase them from the store and you don’t have to make a purchase. If your state doesn’t have this kind of requirement, attempt national chains such as Best Buy, Lowe’s, RadioShack, Staples and The Home Depot, all which run complimentary recycling services.

Find a Call2Recycle Collection Point

Call2Recycle is a nonprofit battery stewardship program. It deals with businesses and municipalities to collect and recycle batteries by establishing free public collection websites across the United States. If your town or city doesn’t run its own program or does not participate in Call2Recycle, you might find a local shop that does– the program deals with big sellers and small shops. You can discover your nearest collection points using the Call2Recycle online location finder.

Use Manufacturer Recycling Programs

Your laptop manufacturer might have the ability to recycle your batteries for you. Some manufacturers, including IBM, run a mail recycling service, and Apple will recycle Mac batteries for you if you take them to any of its retail stores. At the time of publication, many major producers, such as Acer, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba no longer run their own battery recycling services however use the Call2Recycle program.

Use an Online Collection Service

Some online recycling companies accept laptop batteries. Generally, you pay for the service, buying a box which you then fill and return to the company. The company pays shipping expenses. Given the fact that this service is not free, it may suit you just if you do not have access to a local free recycling service or if you have a great deal of other products to recycle, such as other types of batteries and rechargeable electronic devices.