Let’s Talk About How Alkaline Batteries Are Recycled!

The Alkaline Battery is a type of battery that is normally used for most things. Many people say that Alkaline Batteries are safe to dispose of in the trash but, because of the chemicals, it is still harmful to do so. Alkaline batteries use liquid Sodium Hydroxide as the electrolyte but in the 1960s Duracell stopped using this main chemical and liquid electrolytes.

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Used Alkaline batteries are taken to a recycling plant. But many other batteries find their way with the alkaline batteries. So the batteries are taken to a sorting station where they are sorted. Non-Alkaline batteries are taken to different facilities so they could be recycled.

Step 2: The main goal of recycling these batteries is to get zinc and manganese from the alkaline battery. The batteries are crushed using a hammer mill and the crushed casings and zinc/manganese powder is all that remains. These chemicals are dumped onto a conveyor belt.

Step 3: A strong electrical current on the conveyor belt separates the casings from the powder. The casings are thrown away and the powder is transported to another facility which will turn it into useful things.

Step 4: The zinc and manganese are mixed up and converted to pellets. These are used to produce fertilizer to grow plants or create new batteries.

This is the important process of Alkaline Batteries recycling!

Author: Sri Nihal Tammana