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How to Correctly Recycle a Car Battery

There are substances within every car battery that are bad for the environment. This why it is so important to dispose of them in the correct fashion. But a lot of people fail to do so, instead simply throwing them into the trash. In fact, the percentage of people who don’t properly dispose of car batteries is roughly fifty percent.

Lead-acid batteries aren’t the same as house-hold batteries. There are different precautions that need to be taken during the recycling process. However, one can always rest easy in the fact that they are doing a good thing by doing so. Those toxic substances aren’t going to get into the environment and harm the local plant and wild-life thanks to you. What’s more, the materials get to be re-used, which is also great.

car-battery-recycling-process

A Description of What Lead Batteries are

Lead batteries are batteries that have lead plates and an exterior of the plastic variety. Worst of all, they have within them a substance known as sulphuric acid. This is why they are so bad. To begin with, lead is in itself bad. But add to that the acid. When this stuff leaks, which it will if it is simply thrown into a landfill or something, it is very harmful to the local environment.

When a battery of this sort is properly disposed of, the materials that are recycled include the lead and the plastic. They are re-purposed in order to make other things. And the acid? Why, it is neutralised so that it is no longer acidic.

When you look at a new battery, you can be sure that roughly 80% of it has been made from reconstituted materials garnered from old batteries that have been recycled. What is the best way to get rid of a battery that you have? The very first thing you need to do is get its transportation sorted out.

Proper Car Battery Recycling – Safe, Responsible & Eco-Friendly | Welly Scrap Yard Wellington

How to Sort and Transport Car Batteries

Fortunately, there are safety guidelines that you can follow if you are about to transport a car battery. Which is good, seeing that the wrong kind of handling can result in a car battery leaking corrosive and dangerous acid all over the place. That is definitely the kind of accident you don’t want, but which can be properly avoided.

Locate the Recycling Symbol: You will be able to locate the symbol on the battery in question that will tell you whether it can be recycled or not. It is the PB symbol, which is the symbol for lead. Or, failing that, just find the universal recycling symbol.

Make Sure the Terminals Are Facing in the Upward Direction: Do you want to make sure that no fires or shorts are properly prevented? Then your best bet is to place it so all the terminals are facing upwards. What should you put them in? A plastic container, of course! One that preferably is lined with cardboard on the inside. Are you going to be putting batteries on top of batteries? Put something between them like a few pieces of cardboard.

Get some Shrink Wrap: If you have a few batteries and they are sitting on top of one another, you should shrink wrap them together. This is so that they don’t fall over.

Transporting Batteries to the Local Recycling Place

If you are about to go to the local recycling centre, don’t get all the way there only to find out that they don’t even recycle batteries. Instead, check ahead to make sure that they do.

Perhaps your local recycling centre pays for old batteries. How much they pay will depend on what the market is doing, however. What is the reason for paying people for their old batteries? To incentivise people into taking part in the recycling of them in the first place. There are also plenty of salvage yards that sell used parts and recycle old parts who will gladly take your part off your hands.

Getting Paid for your Useless Battery

As has been discussed above, it turns out that some centres actually pay money for old car batteries. Perhaps you have an old battery of the automotive variety gathering dust somewhere on your property. Perhaps the reason why it is there is because you procrastinated disposing of it to the point where you forgot of its existence. Where are some of the places that buy used car batteries? Let’s find out!

Stores that Sell Auto Parts: Perhaps you go to an auto parts store that provides you with credit if you take your battery in and are planning on purchasing a brand new one. Maybe you are going to a store that offers to provide you with a credit if you buy a brand-new car battery, countering the cost. The only problem with this is that the odd store out there actually charges a small amount of money in order to recycle a car battery.

Scrap Yards: Scrap yards are in the business of buying scrap cars in order to recycle them. This includes the batteries that are in the car. They will also buy a battery on its own. The market is what dictates how much you can expect to get. It can go up, and it can go down. It is always a good idea to be strategic and wait for the right moment.

Individual batteries aren’t gold-mines, so unless you are selling a whole bunch of them, you will probably not get a huge amount of money.

Recycling Centres: This is usually where you want to go if you are looking to sell a used car battery. They are just the same as scrap yards. They recycle cars that have reached their junk stage. The parts that are in good enough condition are removed and added to used-parts stock.

The Importance of Auto Parts Recycling for Our Environment

Conclusion

The main beneficiary of recycling old car batteries is the environment. But you can get a wee bit of money out of it yourself if you go about it the right way. Good luck!