Taping Batteries Saves Lives | Hacker News Reader

Taping Batteries Saves Lives

bcycle.com.au

21 pointsadrian_mrd11 comments

At a local hardware store the battery recycling bin has a sign asking that only 9V batteries be taped since there is a much more likely hazard of their side-by-side terminals being directly shorted from inadvertent contact than for those with polar opposite terminals. The mess and hassle of untaping non-9v batteries for recycling centre workers was the cited reason, so my guess is that the fire risk is seen as much less important than the work required to untape them.

Unless I missed something, there is no mention of the risk. (e.g. what % of house fires are caused by small low voltage/low capacity cells? By what factor do storage interventions reduce that risk?) There is a "Battery Safety" link near the bottom of the page but it's 404.

If you store batteries in metal containers, you can expect sparks.

If you store your batteries in the same drawer as your bare wire, you can expect sparks.

If those batteries are Lithium Ion type, they might smoke or even catch fire.

The claim that taping AAA cells will save lives seems far fetched.

Relevant parody/commentary from Reason TV: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko

Yes, I rolled my eyes at the AAA thing. Safety Third!

There is a vanishingly small chance of your battery disposal box being the source of a fire in your house. The Fire Cause Analysis have reported one for sure, and another possible in the years 2017 - 2022. Out of all the fires that is a small number.

That said, Lithium Ion batteries in the "recycling pipeline" (usually E-waste pipeline) have been suspected as the source of a big increase in fires[1]. This isn't particularly surprising given that more and more electronics make those batteries not removable, and just exposure to air by lithium metal can cause it to catch fire (no current or spark required). So if you put a cell phone through a crusher, very good chance there will be a fire in the resulting waste slurry.

I'm watching for legislation that requires all electronics sold to have removable batteries. Manufacturers will pitch that as "and now you can swap out the battery!" but it will be because of the disposal risk.

[1] https://www.wastedive.com/news/high-number-of-facility-fires...

Assuming you throw out dead batteries, what's the harm in shorting them? (If we're talking normal nonrechargable alkaline batteries. If throwing away a lithium battery I'll definitely verify that the cells are totally dead or protect the terminals.)

How do you know the battery's dead? Just because it won't power the gadget in question, doesn't mean it's completely drained. Moreover, dead batteries look exactly like fresh batteries, so it's easy to get them mixed up due to inattention/confusion.

In my limited understanding, the danger of shorting (and/or residual electrical charge) is merely one of the disposal risks associated with lithium-based batteries. For example, the raw materials innate chemical volatility may lead to combustion reactions upon crushing or piercing, which often happens during general rubbish disposal processes.

Several fires at rubbish processing centers in my area were suspected to have been caused like that, and now, while it's not (yet) against the law here to dispose of them in this way, nobody will actually knowingly let you do it - it's strongly frowned upon.

This seems marginally useful (tape can be dislodged, and a 1.5V alkaline that is at the end of its service life isn't going to do much anyway). But for Lithium Ion things are a bit different, and for 9V blocks as well because they already have a nice series going there and have handy terminals that allow them to connect to each other (cheap source of HV DC: 10 of those clicked together will give you enough juice to run the high side of an electron tube based amp).

Lithium Ion I simply discharge until the protection circuit kicks in, after that they are not quite inert but fairly safe to handle. Usually this happens somewhere between 2.5 and 3 V.

Why clear tape?

Guess: so battery leaks can be seen.

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