Summary of Battery Types
Battery Disposal Options
What Do I Need?
An Example of Recycling

Battery disposal has become a topical subject in the UK as we become more aware of the dangers and implications of depositing up to 300 million batteries, some containing harmful materials, into our landfill sites each year, a waste stream of over 20,000 tonnes.

Battery disposal in Landfill Sites has been become more regulated since July 2002 by regulation 9 of the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002 and Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005, many sites will not accept waste batteries, especially if they have been collected separately, and NiCad, Lead Acid and batteries containing Mercury are all classified as Hazardous Waste - as are unsorted mixed loads.

If you produce large volumes of battery waste we would be happy to advise you on the best disposal / recycling route to use.

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There are a number of different types of battery or cells, which come in an endless range of shapes and sizes, a summary of the various types, are:

Primary Batteries i.e. Non-rechargeable

Zinc Carbon: This battery is nominal 1.5 V, an old type, cheap and voltage varies considerably during use. 

Alkaline Manganese: This battery is nominal 1.5V, ubiquitous replacement for zinc-carbon, higher energy more expensive. 

Mercury: This battery is phased out in many applications because mercury is very poisonous, was/is used in small applications e.g. cameras, hearing aids.

Lithium: This battery comes in wide ranging family with voltages varying from 1.5 V to 3.6 V, high energy density, voltage almost constant and very long shelf life. Sounds magic and indeed they are special but the downside is that Lithium is a very reactive element, which can lead to explosive consequences. Do not attempt to charge unless explicitly specified and avoid short circuits. They are also very expensive to buy.

Zinc Air: This battery is nominal 1.4V, as its name suggests must be exposed to the air (a seal is usually removed when first used), high self-discharge rate.

Silver Oxide: This battery is nominal 1.55V. Often sold as button cells, for use in calculators, cameras, watches etc where its stable discharge characteristics are valuable.

Secondary - Rechargeable

Lead-acid: This battery is nominal 2 V per cell, as used in cars, well known to be rechargeable, large capacities but lead is very poisonous. This battery can be either wet or dry and its disposal and recycling is easy because the large amount of lead in each battery has a value in the scrap metal industry. Lead-acid and Sealed Lead-acid (SLA) are used where relatively large energy ratings are called for but weight is not a major problem.

Nickel Cadmium (NiCad): This battery is 1.2 V per cell. Used extensively in rechargeable situations and because it exhibits a memory effect is either continuously trickle-charged or recharged after complete discharge (i.e. not partially discharged and then charged). NiCad can be recharged a large number of times (say, more than a thousand). NiCad's may be produced as dry cells or vented units, the manufacturer SAFT has subsidised the recycling of the vented units but this scheme is due to end in December 2003. Cadmium is very poisonous.

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH): This battery is 1.2V per cell. They are a new generation that can replace NiCad and have higher energy density and longer life cycle, and don't exhibit memory effect, are usually charged with constant current source. They do not contain the most dangerous heavy metals so are more environmentally friendly than NiCad. The disadvantage is that they cannot be recharged so many times as NiCad (maybe less than a thousand), but this is a theoretical constraint because many NiCad's fail to delivery their optimum number of recharges.

Nickel-zinc: 7 cells for 12V, is claimed to provide the lowest impact to the environment of any standard rechargeable battery technology mainly because of the absence of contamination from the dangerous heavy metals. They have lower cost than NiMH, are lighter and better performers than lead acid, have a high capacity per cycle and high cycle life and they also have low maintenance requirement. Size may be less than Lead-acid and about the same as NiCad.

Lithium Ion (Li-Ion): This battery is used, as well as NiMH, in special applications e.g. laptop computers, are expensive to produce and hence to buy. They have the advantage that they have about twice the energy density of NiCad and NiMH hence can be much lighter and smaller for the same capacity. They can be recharged up to 1000 times approximately. Lithium is a very reactive element, which can lead to explosive consequences, ruptured cells may cause fire and spent batteries should be stored with care.

Lithium Polymer (LI-Polymer): This battery could become the battery of the future. They are reputed to have similar characteristics to Li-Ion but should be much cheaper to produce.

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When talking about the current battery disposal and recycling problems, we are generally talking about non-lead acid batteries; lead acid batteries, such as car batteries, are generally recycled because the lead content has a relatively high value and can be extracted reasonably cost effectively.

Part of the reason battery recycling has become topical is that the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations are set to impose targets for recycling, which will rise from 40-45% to 70-75%, this compares to the current figure in the UK, which is less than 1%!

In the UK currently over 20,000 tonnes of batteries are thrown away each year, the majority ending up in landfill.

Whilst NiCad and Lithium batteries contain substances, which are hazardous to the environment, the zinc and manganese batteries that make up the majority of the battery waste do not contain substances that are particularly harmful if properly treated. The battery manufacturers association point out that the main thrust of regulation for battery disposal is related to minimisation of waste going to land fill rather than any particular environment hazard contained in the battery components and the environmental argument is by no means decided.

There are currently NO facilities in the UK for the reprocessing of non lead-acid batteries and where these are destined for recycling they are stored, sorted and shipped to the continent where they are processed for material recovery, some details of the process are included at the end of this document.

This is the existing route of battery recycling but as the UK tries to recycle more of its battery waste the capacity of these continental plants will be exceeded and stockpiles of batteries are likely to result until new facilities are brought on line.

Under current regulations no batteries should be consigned untreated to landfill. If not processed for material recovery these should be destroyed by incineration or treated before being dumped in an approved landfill site.

The environmental argument for properly processing waste for managed landfill in the UK against shipping batteries for hundreds of miles for reprocessing is not conclusive, it is also clear that the majority of battery waste follows neither of these routes and goes to landfill as part of the general domestic / commercial waste streams.

Envirogreen operates a number of collection schemes and battery disposal services for commercial and non-commercial organisations that have enlightened environmental policies but these produce modest amounts of waste. There has been running a pilot scheme in Bristol (covering 250,000 people), which, even with kerbside collections, only recovered 3.5 tonnes in the first 6 months. This was on target but represents somewhere between 5-10% of the battery waste produced! Other local authorities and some shops and other commercial organisations offer battery collection services for domestic users but these are currently limited.

The cost of battery disposal and / or recycling different battery types varies depending on the market for the recovered materials and the capacity at the recovery plants; in the short term these battery disposal costs are likely to rise as the quantity of batteries being recycled in Europe increases beyond the capacity of the recycling plants, the medium to long term prices are likely to fall as recycling capacity increases and transport costs fall with recycling sites closer to the point of production.

Currently the costs of recycling standard alkaline cells can be 3 times greater than the cost of treatment and disposal and similar variations apply to NiCad and Lithium batteries.

The most environmentally friendly and economically viable battery disposal solution for any individual organisation's battery waste stream will depend on the volume of waste, differently chemistries of batteries used, frequency of collections required and number of locations where the waste is produced. Envirogreen are able to offer battery disposal services and advice on the various options and tailor packages to suit individual requirements.

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Service Options

Envirogreen offer a number of different packages for the collection and disposal / recycling of the various different types of batteries, these are generally tailored to the customers' specific needs.

 To give you an idea of the sorts of battery disposal services and prices, there are some examples given below:

Lead Acid

Storage containers for lead acid batteries can be provided, these are euro pallet sized rigid plastic containers with fork lift eyes on each face.

The boxes are 1.2M X 1.0M X .85M (high) and will hold about 850KG or 85 standard sized car batteries. These containers can be rented from £15 per month, collection and recycling costs are dependant on the weight of batteries and prices can be quoted as required.

Standard Dry Cells Alkaline / Zinc with some NiCad and Lithium Cells

"Standard" dry cell batteries typically AA, AAA, C and D type cells can be stored and removed for recycling or disposal, in accordance with all current regulations.

There are different types of container available: