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For most of my young adulthood, I kept an empty pretzel container in the back of my closet that I filled with spent batteries. As my collection grew, I made myself feel better about this battery boneyard by imagining it as a tiny cabinet of curiosities—with corroded AAs, an assortment of button-cell batteries, and an old smartphone standing in for precious objets d’art and reticulated skeletons—but in reality I just didn’t know what to do with them. Moving Quilt
I wanted to spare my spent batteries from the trash can (where they could potentially catch fire or explode) and keep them out of the landfill (where they could leach harmful chemicals into local ecosystems), but I wasn’t sure how to recycle them. I was also skeptical that recycling would actually do anything, having spent decades dutifully recycling plastic with seemingly little impact (according to a Greenpeace study, just 5% of all plastic waste generated by US households in 2021 was actually recycled).
Fortunately, the landscape of options for battery recycling has evolved significantly as I’ve eased into my thirties. Unlike plastics, which are notoriously difficult and unprofitable to recycle, recycling the metals found in most batteries is simpler and often legally mandated. It has also become much more lucrative as demand for these materials continues to rise, and with the help of new federal incentives.
After reporting on batteries and charging accessories over the past few years, not to mention recycling batteries of all types, I’ve found that these are the best recycling methods—they’re easy to do and easy on the environment.
A growing number of municipalities, as well as several private companies, provide designated drop-off sites for battery recycling. Some offer this service for free, while others may charge a fee (usually based on the type and quantity of batteries you want to drop off). Either way, it’s a convenient option.
You can find electronic-waste recycling facilities in your area using these searchable databases:
Once you decide on a drop-off site, you may want to call ahead to confirm that it accepts the specific type(s) of batteries you have, just in case the website isn’t up to date. You should also see if they have any requirements on how to prepare the batteries, like sorting them by chemical composition—such as alkaline, lithium, or nickel metal hydride—or sealing them in a clear plastic bag.
If you’re homebound or simply prefer to recycle by mail, you have several good options.
First, see if your local recycling provider has a mail-in service. Just like buying local produce, it’s generally more sustainable to minimize the distance your batteries must travel from your home to their final destination (even though your local provider might very well ship them to an out-of-state or overseas materials recovery facility, anyway). Earth911’s database is the most useful tool I’ve found for addressing this concern, since it has a filter to zero in on mail-in programs.
If you don’t have a mail-in program in your area, the database shows results for national programs that accept batteries from your zip code as well. It also labels municipal programs and locations as such, which is helpful if you want to differentiate between public and private recycling services. If you still can’t find your provider in the database you’re using (none of them are comprehensive), you may need to do an old-fashioned Google search to find the main number for your local sanitation department, which should be able to point you in the right direction.
These are the mail-in services for battery recycling that I’ve tried and can recommend:
Very few places in the US allow residents to put batteries out with their weekly recycling, but if it’s permitted where you live, it’s a great option. For instance, in some California cities you can recycle a wide variety of battery types this way, including both rechargeable and single-use AAA, AA, C, D, and 9-volt batteries. To take advantage of this service, residents must simply tape up their batteries’ exposed terminals (so they don’t short-circuit and start a fire), seal them in a plastic bag, and set them on top of their recycling bin on their regular pickup day. Taping and bagging your batteries might seem like a chore, but it’s worth doing: Minneapolis ceased all residential battery-recycling pickups after a vape pen started smoldering in a local library’s e-waste collection bin.
Usually, though, pickup has a few more stipulations. In some parts of Colorado, residents can call to schedule a pickup or wait for an annual collection of household hazardous waste. In Los Angeles, where I live, I can call the city’s sanitation department to request a curbside pickup. And people living in the Pennsylvania township of North Fayette have one of the cushiest setups I’ve seen: After registering and scheduling a pickup online, they receive a bag in the mail to fill with their batteries and other accepted waste, which they can then seal up and leave on the curb.
If you don’t know whether a government department or private contractor handles recycling in your area—let alone if they’ll pick up your used batteries—I’d start by checking Earth911’s searchable database. In addition to labeling each search result to indicate whether it’s a municipal or a private provider, the database has a color-coded list of the various items accepted during routine pickups. (But again, none of the databases I’ve used are entirely up to date or exhaustive, so you may need to confirm your findings with a phone call.)
If you’re jaded about the recycling industrial complex—and perhaps rightfully so—you might feel unmotivated to spend your time, energy, and possibly money on battery recycling. But you have several good reasons to do so.
For one, it’s safer than just dumping them in the trash. Improperly disposing of batteries can cause fires or explosions. Not only are you putting your own household in harm’s way when you toss batteries in the garbage, but you could be unwittingly risking the safety of sanitation workers who come into contact with your trash after it leaves your doorstep.
Even though some municipalities allow residents to put certain types of batteries in the trash, such as alkaline or carbon-zinc batteries, we still recommend recycling them. It’s simpler than trying to remember which batteries go where, and (even with this handy EPA guide) it’s easy to misread the fine print and confuse one battery type with another.
Trashing your batteries is also bad for local ecosystems. When batteries and other items containing heavy metals or other toxic materials end up in a landfill, they often leach harmful chemicals into local soil and water systems. But more often than not, nonferrous metals—the kind commonly used to make batteries and other electronics—are destined for the trash. For example, in 2018, about 3.4 million tons of aluminum, nickel, zinc, and other nonferrous metals were landfilled, whereas just 2.4 million tons were recycled.
Likewise, batteries may contain metals that can be salvaged and made into new electronics, reducing the overall need to mine more raw materials. This is good for consumers, since mining bottlenecks can lead to shortages that hike up the cost of electronics. Plus, the metal-mining industry has a long track record of human rights violations and is by far the biggest source of toxic chemicals released into the environment annually in the US.
Fortunately, it takes far less energy to recycle most metals than it does to produce them. Metal is highly energy-intensive to mine and process for manufacturing, but it’s generally one of the easiest materials to recycle. And unlike plastic and paper, which degrade each time they’re handled, metals can be recycled indefinitely.
Another great reason to recycle your batteries? It might encourage you to visit a new small business in your community. For example, until I saw it listed on Call2Recycle, I was unaware of a store near me called The Dinosaur Farm that specializes in dinosaur-related toys, books, and other paleontological paraphernalia. Lesson learned: Recycle your batteries, and avoid missing out on dinosaur-themed toy stores.
This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.
Sarah Witman is a senior staff writer who reports on powering and charging technology for Wirecutter. She previously worked as a writer, editor, and fact checker for several science magazines. Though she researches and tests chargers for a living, her phone battery is usually low.
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