Meet the RoboRockstars at Village Market
Dead batteries contain hazardous, toxic and corrosive materials and cause adverse effects to the environment and us. Throwing away batteries can cause fires, water and air pollution, and negatively affect human health.
We are the Robo Rockstars, a group of eighth graders from Issaquah Highlands. We are participating in a robotics competition called First Lego League, where our team is tasked with finding a solution to an energy-related problem in our community.
Our team has researched about recycling batteries and the lack of information available. We’ve discovered that many people are unaware of battery recycling. Meanwhile, many people who are familiar have found that the information online is often confusing, disorganized and unreliable.
Because this is such an important topic, we talked to important stakeholders in the community such as Issaquah Mayor Mary Lou Pauly and Highlands Council about how we can spread word on this topic and bring a change within our community.
We sent out a survey to our community and got responses that were concerning. About 18% of participants said they threw batteries in the trash, whereas 32% said that they put them in the recycling bin at home. Roughly 39% of total respondents said they don’t go to recycling sites at all.
But why is this a bad thing, and why is proper disposal of batteries important?
Improper disposal of batteries is not only dangerous to our environment, but also harmful to humans as well. Did you know that when leaking batteries end up in the landfill, it seeps into our soil and contaminates it? Not only that—it climbs up the food chain and eventually harms us and animals.
These leaking batteries can also cause fires. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has uncovered 245 fires caused by leaking lithium-ion batteries in the U.S. These fires happened at 64 different waste sites. According to the American Environmental Landfill (AEL), the toxic materials in batteries are cancer-causing materials called carcinogens. These carcinogens can cause harm to both humans and other animals.
One of the biggest benefits of recycling batteries is the ability to reuse the materials in them, such as lithium, nickel and copper. Reusing these materials instead of mining them saves energy by giving us resources to create things like cell phones, laptops, toys, cars, refrigerators and much more.
Now that we’ve highlighted the importance of battery recycling and why we should practice it, let’s talk about how to dispose them properly. One of the most common ways to recycle your batteries is by dropping them off at designated sites in your city.
Call2Recycle is a company that collects dead batteries from collection sites. They provide collection bins to many businesses, like Recology, and then return to pick up the recycled batteries. They also have a location finder on their website to identify drop-off sites near you. In Issaquah, there are many places where you can drop off your batteries such as Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy and many businesses. If you own or work at a business that disposes of batteries in large quantities, Call2Recycle can provide you with your own collection box.
One thing to keep in mind—some battery collection centers do not accept certain types of batteries, such as alkaline or rechargeable batteries. Batteries also need to be taped at the collection sites to keep them as hazard free as possible.
You can learn more about battery recycling at our upcoming website! It’s called BatteriesRUs (site yet to be launched), and it has all the knowledge you need to recycle batteries! We’ve written articles about where you can go to recycle, different types of batteries, how to deal with leaking batteries and more.
Our team is excited to participate in our local Village Market to share information about battery recycling.
Thanks for reading!
Dyuti Kasi, Medha Rao, Mythri Kumaran and Saanvi Kanaparthy are eighth graders in Issaquah Highlands. Medha and Mythri attend Pacific Cascade Middle School, while Saanvi goes to The Eton School and Dyuti goes to The Otherlake School.
