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Comment by trollbridge | Hacker News Reader

Getting rid of 1¢/2¢/5¢ coins would be a help, simply so there are fewer coins floating around - less change given on an average transaction.

My kids love playing with coins and before they turn 4 or so, love sticking them in their mouth. You have to be careful not to leave them around. We got a gumball machine that dispenses M&Ms, so at least now they think of coins as “something I should spend” instead of “something I should chew on”.

Coins aren’t that toxic… most of the time. An even worse threat is button and coin cell batteries. Those should really leave any parent worried. When disposing of them, they need to be wrapped up in something big enough they can’t be swallowed and then taped up so the coin can’t get out. Lately I’ve been disposing of them in a sharps container I have for getting rid of Stanley knife razor blades, another decent choice.

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Wait, do Americans (judging from your 1cent coins) not have battery recycling? All my coin cells just go in the battery recycling.

I'd say in this case it's worse if you have recycling because then you have to keep them around until you get them to recycling vs. just chucking them in the bin.

But they can stay in the "dangerous objects that children don't have access to" place, until you take them to the battery recycling.

So what you need is... a recycling bin where you put stuff that are awaiting your next trip to the recycling station.

Batteries, light-bulbs, small electronics...

Sounds expensive to support all the logistics of that bin.

For me it’s just a shoebox by the door that comes with me the next time I go to a thrift store or other participating e-waste handler.

Yeah, I have a little battery jar as well. I basically only use coin batteries, so it looks kinda cool as it fills up.

How many batteries do you go through ? I'm speaking from experience - my inlaws put batteries in a box in a drawer, my snoopy older son found it going through the drawers and spread them all over the flor. He's old enough not to eat them but the younger one isn't. Nothing happened ofc. but point is you are collecting dangerous shit for no reason - the ~10 batteries I replace in a year ? Not to mention you never remember to take them to a recycling place, maybe in like 3 years if you haven't grown tired of them and just chucked them in regular garbage.

In my American city, yes, we can put batteries in a zip-lock bag on top of our trash bin. But I'm not going to do this for a single coin cell.

I usually just have a stack/pile/box of electronics and batteries to take to the local electronics recycling place a few miles away. Unfortunately, the pile is never 0, because as soon as I drop it off, I find something new to get rid of.

That may be exclusively a Portland thing.

You definitely can't do that in most of the US.

I'm in California.

I've never tried it but I can almost guarantee any bag placed on top of my trash bin would end up falling off and laying the the nearby grass when the truck tries to tip the bin. For most of the year my truck comes by before dawn. Even if they saw it, I'm sure they wouldn't get out of the truck to properly handle it.

A dedicated bin in front of my house for it? No.

I’m not really going to make a special trip to some place to recycle tiny little batteries - and most recycling is a scam anyway that either gets dumped in the regular rubbish or else gets shipped to a third world country.

For things that can be legitimately recycled I make sure to reuse them… cardboard is one thing that is legitimately recycled here with special places to drop it off that is worth the special trip.

For plastic trash, it isn’t recyclable and is one of the most irritating aspects of buying anything new: a mountain of unusable plastic. The same goes for takeout food.

At least where I am in the US, the Goodwill also participates in the state’s E Waste program, so I just have a little box of used batteries that comes with me when I spring clean and inevitably decide to donate something.

The Goodwills in my area all claim to do e-waste. I've never been to one that will accept e-waste.

Just bury it at the bottom of a box of clothes then.

In Finland any shop that sells small batteries must also offer to recycle them for free.

There is similar rule for bottles/cans with deposits (similar to CRV though values are quite a bit higher, 0.10-0.40€ depending on size/material). If you sell something for which customer needs to pay the deposit for you also need to accept them & pay back the deposit.

> most recycling is a scam anyway that either gets dumped in the regular rubbish or else gets shipped to a third world country

I've never seen this credibly claimed about battery recycling. Curbside plastic recycling sure, but my understanding is that at least lithium ion batteries legitimately have enough value to be worth the effort to really recycle for the companies who do it.

In my country every supermarket has a recycling box where you can drop batteries, light bulbs and old small electronics (think hair dryers or keyboards).

I believe this comes from an EU regulation that when electronics reach end-of-life you can give them back to the store that sold them.

I'd love to see the financials of this service, as I assume sometimes people dump things that are working they just don't need. I guess the store also pays the company something so they don't need to deal with recycling themselves. And I guess they just put everything in a shipping container and send it to China.

> A dedicated bin in front of my house for it? No.

I think all supermarkets here have them these days; anyone who sells batteries is required to provide battery recycling facilities, as far as I know.

Also, bizarrely, my _office_ has them, despite not using anything that I can think of that uses disposable batteries at all.

If you’re using a (presumably plastic?) sharps container, you should be very careful that they’re wrapped in something first; otherwise they are a potential fire hazard.

> For plastic trash, it isn’t recyclable

Most plastic is recyclable these days. Now, whether it gets recycled or not is another question, and will depend on local law and facilities, but it’s mostly recyclable.

A lot of places in the US just don't have recycling at all. I've never heard of a municipal recycling program that takes batteries. Everywhere in the US I'm aware of you have to take batteries to a specialty drop-off location for recycling. They're all private businesses like Home Depot or small battery shops.

Because of this, a horrifying number of batteries just go into the landfill

My county is about 35,000 people. There's no pickup for batteries, but they accept them for dropoff on site (along with other recyclables).

I think this is pretty common, probably any landfill with a household hazardous waste program.

My county in California has a household hazardous waster disposal drop off. Any resident can drop off old batteries, bulbs, motor oil, anti-freeze, brake fluid, paints thinner, solvents, pesticides, cleaning chemicals, electronic waste, old stuff with mercury and medical sharps to name a few. You don't even have to exit your car. Just place everything in boxes in your car trunk and park at the facility and their staff will take care of it. If you have anything that looks new and usable they leave it in a reuse area for others who want it. Its all funded through a $15 fee on our property taxes. Well worth it for the convenience.

Typically it's a one day per year household hazardous waste drop off. Bigger cities may have more frequency.

Any other day and it's usually a volunteer business somewhere in the town. It may have a fee.

Oh that's not practical at all.

We have battery drop off points every neighbourhood supermarket, which is in every couple of kilometers or so (Europe).

In Copenhagen (Denmark) we have them in every apartment building. There's a bin for batteries, and a cupboard for other hazardous waste.

I'm not sure if every house has one, or if they're just in a few places along streets with houses, but there is some system for it as I've seen the red boxes.

Not just kids but also dogs.

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