On May 16, the Rotary Club of Alameda will partner with Redwood Materials to recycle lithium-ion batteries for the good of the planet. Drop off your lithium-ion batteries and items that contain lithium-ion batteries in front of Alameda City Hall, 2263 Santa Clara Avenue, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
[1]Items that contain lithium-ion batteries include cell phones, laptops, tablets, rechargeable power tools, electric toothbrushes, wireless headphones, Bluetooth speakers, vaping devices, and many other rechargeable devices. There’s no need to extract the battery to recycle it, just bring the entire product to the event. Do not bring car batteries.
Look for the Rotary banner and friendly volunteers. Two parking spaces will be reserved for drop off in front of Alameda City Hall Plaza.
The use of lithium-ion batteries is on the rise as the electric vehicle industry is scaling and with the increasing use of rechargeable items such as those listed above. These rechargeable batteries contain minerals in limited supply, such as nickel, lithium, and cobalt. The mining, processing, and shipping of these minerals is energy-intensive, producing greenhouse gases which harm the climate.
Today, less than 5% of consumer lithium-ion batteries are recycled, and many have ended up in landfills, causing fires and harmful environmental impacts.
Redwood Materials founder and former Tesla chief technology officer JB Straubel stated, “Perhaps the largest lithium and cobalt mines can be found in the junk drawers of America.” If we recover these scarce metals from non-working or not-needed products and consumer lithium-ion batteries—which can be sustainably broken down into elemental particles nearly infinitely—we can significantly decrease the United States’ reliance on newly mined materials, he noted.
Up to 95% of the critical materials can be recovered and will ultimately help to ensure the security of American supply chains for clean energy technologies and protect the climate and environment. The goal of the Rotary Club recycling event is to develop awareness and help “mine the junk drawers of America.”
Joyce Mercado is the author of Save the Planet in Your Spare Time: A Climate Protection Handbook for the Busy Person, a member of Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA), and President of the Rotary Club of Alameda. Her columns are collected at alamedapost.com/Joyce-Mercado [3]. She can be reached at [email protected] [4].