Seattle Public Utilities
You shouldn’t throw batteries in the trash anyhow but now it is against the rules in Seattle. City officials are scrambling to get the word out after Seattle Public Utilities quietly put new rules into place banning batteries from the garbage to start 2024 to address an increase in dangerous fires, environmental, and cost concerns.
The new rules ban trash disposal of common household batteries, more powerful batteries for vehicles and tools, and embedded batteries found in electronics, toys, computers, monitors, and e-bikes,
It’s an honor system.
“There isn’t any way for our staff to do that practically and collect all the city’s garbage and recycling,” McKenna Morrigan, policy advisory for SPU, said on KING 5. “So we’re really counting on residents and businesses to do their part.”
Seattle residents do pretty OK with honor though sometimes our good intentions get the best of us. CHS reported here on the ongoing problem of “aspirational recycling” in the city as residents often stuff things that rat up the system into recycling bins in hopes that workers will sort it out.
The issue around battery fires is growing.
“In the last two years, the Seattle Fire Department has responded to 79 lithium-ion battery fires, often involving e-scooters, e-bikes and portable electronics,” Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said in a statement. “This is a growing fire safety concern across the nation as consumers purchase more items with lithium-ion batteries. Fires involving batteries can start and spread quickly, so properly storing, charging, and disposing of batteries becomes key to preventing fires where injuries and property loss could occur.”
CHS reported here last spring on a 10th Ave E apartment fire blamed on a scooter battery.
As for how you should properly deal with your old batteries and electronics, the city has provided some guidance on disposal options:
How to properly dispose of batteries and electronics
Battery Disposal Options:
- Free drop off: SPU North or South Transfer Stations, Household Hazardous Waste Management facilities, or partner retail locations listed on Call2Recycle.org or E-cycle WA
- If a battery is damaged or defective, drop off at a Household Hazardous Waste Management Facility (free of charge)
- At home: request a Special Item Pickup ($5 charge)
Electronics Disposal Options:
- Free drop off: SPU North Transfer Station or E-cycle WA locations
- At home: request a Special Item Pickup ($20 for Special Items box, $30 for TVs larger than 2 ft.)
Special items pickups are free for Utility Discount Program customers.
Seattle’s increasingly complicated rules around garbage and recycling have also created opportunity. CHS reported here on local startup Ridwell’s growth providing subscription recycling services. The company says it accepts basic household batteries for disposal.
With the city options and options like Ridwell, used batteries typically end up with processors who separate out any dangerous chemicals for storage or disposal while reusing the metals and materials in things like silverware or pots and pans, or, yes, more batteries.
HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Why not just tax manufactures to make the recycling free of charge?
Agreed. Not sure if batteries are included in an upcoming bill (HB 2049, ReWRAP Act) but hopefully it will get enough votes to pass this time around.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/make-companies-responsible-for-the-waste-they-produce-in-wa/
As long as you’re clear-eyed about the fact that companies will add that cost to the prices that we, the consumers, pay.
It feels like it makes sense to make the people who consume the most pay for their behavior, but at the same time, if you spread the cost out over everyone it’d be very small and you could just do it as a city service.
Probably. But another result would be less stuff that isn’t sustainable: rechargeable rather than requiring disposable batteries, etc. Branching out from batteries-the exact same products on the shelf here have much less packaging in countries requiring producers to cover cost of disposal
Taxing the manufacturers would direct the cost to the heaviest users. They would pass some (how much — harder to tell) of the cost on to the consumers who purchase the taxed batteries.
So, what does a conscientious person do when one can’t travel to or afford these inadequate alternatives? If people are to take this seriously so should the city such as PD,FD, any public/private co-op arrangements, etc. dropoffs.
Yeah I’m sure anyone will do this.
It’s fine that Seattle wants to make collection of waste safer, but this is shifting the burden of disposal onto rate payers who are in effect now getting less service for the same fees, and have to go figure out where to take batteries and then schlep them there. The top options suggested are still the Transfer Centers and Hazardous Waste sites, which is just a joke for people without cars.
The sheer fact that Ridwell exists and has a viable business seems proof that SPU is falling short in actually doing it job of collecting the waste that people need to get rid of.
Sure, some stores have some bins for some things, but expecting people to keep a mental list of what to take where isn’t realistic. My grocery store doesn’t have a battery bin or a plastic film bin, and I’m not excited about making extra trips to dispose of them. I don’t imagine many people are.
SPU should work to at least create simple, predictable options. Create neighborhood collection points that are easy to find and easy to access, not spread across many stores.
Maybe bins in the entry/exits spaces of the light rail stations would be a start.
In many countries of Europe grocery stores have buckets at the checkout where you can put used batteries. Why is such a simple solution not embraced here?
Libraries and transit stations could be another place to deposit batteries. Let’s not have it be difficult to do the right thing.
Problem is, there are too few recycling centers. If you’re faced with taking a bus to get to, say, the North Transfer station, you’ll prob find it easier to just drop them in the dumpster.
I’ll put in a plug for Ridwell. Yes, there are “free” options, but Ridwell makes it easy to recycle a lot of things that can be recycled. It also demonstrates a market for recyclable materials at the same time it shows the scope of the problem of too much waste.
May i suggest rechargeable batteries and a charger. Saves lots of money too.
So if you live in a Capitol Hill apartment and want to properly dispose of a battery, SPU expects you to find a car or take two buses so you can go across town to a “transfer station” in the middle of nowhere? It’s pointless to issue an edict like this if they have no interest in it actually working. But I think they know that.
PCC had a barrel for disposing batteries at one point. It’s a little more convenient than the spots they have listed. I’d like to see them all over the neighborhood if they’re going to crack down now.
Does Central Coop still have their battery disposal bin?
Just checked the other day, and they don’t recycle batteries anymore. The sign they have up links to a website: call2recycle.org
None of the locations are in nor near Capitol Hill :(
People on my block can’t even figure out recycling and composting vs trash so I am not confident about this