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Waste reduction fast facts: Batteries

Garbage and recycling  ›  Recycle at school  ›  Fast facts about waste reduction  ›  Batteries

This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.

Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.

• Americans purchase nearly 3 billion dry-cell batteries (alkaline, button cell and rechargeable) every year to power radios, toys, cellular phones, watches, laptop computers, and portable power tools. Dry-cell batteries include alkaline, button cell and rechargeable batteries. –Environmental Protection Agency, Last updated, May 17, 2005
  www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/battery.htm
• Though batteries generally make up less than one percent of municipal solid waste (MSW) they account for a disproportionate amount of the toxic heavy metals. Ni-cad batteries and small sealed lead-acid batteries accounted for 75 percent of the cadmium and 65 percent of the lead found in landfills in 1995. –Environmental Protection Agency, Enforcement Alert, March 2002, EPA 300-N-02-002
• Single-use alkaline batteries contain fewer toxic chemicals than rechargeable batteries, but there are many more of them in the waste stream. –INFORM, Community Waste Prevention Toolkit: battery fact sheet, December 2001
  www.informinc.org/fact_CWPbattery.php#whyreduce
• The U.S. retail market for rechargeables is growing twice as fast as the retail market for alkaline batteries. –INFORM, “Industry Program to Collect Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd) Batteries,” Bette Fishbein, Senior Fellow, 2005; and Hurd, D. J. (1992). Getting a Charge Out of the Wastestream: Feasibility Study for the Implementation of Consumer Dry Cell Battery Recycling as an Alternative to Disposal, April 17, 1992.
• A single rechargeable nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) or Ni-Cd battery can replace up to 1,000 single-use alkaline batteries during its lifetime. –INFORM, Community Waste Prevention Toolkit: battery fact sheet, December 2001
  www.informinc.org/fact_CWPbattery.php#whyreduce
• Using metal recovered from batteries consumes 75 percent less energy and 46 percent less energy than extracting it from primary sources. –Elizabeth Royte, “Garbage Land, On the Secret Trail of Trash,” 2005
• On average, each person in the United States discards eight dry-cell batteries per year. –Environmental Protection Agency, Last updated May 17, 2005
  http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/battery.htm
• Americans throw out approximately 179,000 tons of batteries a year. –Environmental News Network, “San Francisco Supervisor Takes Aim at Toxic Battery Waste,” July 2001; and U.S. Battery Markets, Report 5949, Frost and Sullivan, July 1999, Figure 1-1
  http://www.epa.gov/epr/products/batteries.htm
• In 2005, Americans used an average of six wireless products in their day-to-day lives, with over 30 percent of consumers owning and using eight or more wireless products. This contrasts with 1999 figures when consumers used an average of three wireless products. –Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation, Survey conducted by NOP World on behalf of the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC), 2005
  http://www.call2recycle.org/
• Cell phone subscriptions in the U.S. have increased from 340,000 in 1985 to more than 140 million at the beginning of 2003. –INFORM, “Call All Cell Phones: Collection, Reuse, and Recycling Programs in the US,” Eric Most, 2003
• If each of the 100 million cell phones discarded each year by 2005 used two sets of batteries before being retired, 200 million batteries will have entered the waste stream each year from cell phone use alone. –INFORM, Bette K. Fishbein, “Waste in the Wireless World: The Challenge of Cell Phones,” 2002; INFORM, Eric Most, “Calling All Cell Phones: Collection, Reuse, and Recycling Programs in the US,” 2003
• Florida, one of the few states tracking environmental release of cadmium, calculates that the recovery rate of nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries in 2003 was 14 percent, essentially unchanged from 1995. –Product Policy Institute, “Extended Producer Responsibility Policies in the United States and Canada: History and Status,” Bill Sheehan and Helen Spiegelman, 2005
  http://www.productpolicy.org/assets/resources/EPR-US-Canada-01-2005.pdf
• Four million pounds of rechargeable batteries were recycled in the U.S. and Canada in 2003. This represents an 11 percent increase in business participation, 41 percent increase in community participation, and 76 percent increase in public agency participation since 2002. –Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation, 2003. The Year in Review
  http://www.rbrc.com/graphics/PDF/AnnualReport.pdf
• Lead-acid batteries contain a significant amount of lead, from 8 to 20 pounds in most passenger vehicles and more in SUVs. Recycling of these batteries is more than 90 percent in the U.S. –INFORM, Community Waste Prevention Toolkit: battery fact sheet, December 2001
  www.informinc.org/fact_CWPbattery.php#whyreduce