How to dispose of old cordless drill batteries

Is your tool feeling listless and letting you down on the job? Are you embarrassed because it no longer has the staying power to keep going again and again whilst on the job? Of course I’m talking about your cordless battery… what else did you think?

Power to your cordless tool is a serious matter but what do you do when your tools battery simply comes to the end of its life. After years of good service and constant use there comes the day when your Power Tool Batteries are only good for one thing… a paper weight.

Time is not even a respecter of brand neither so it matters not one jot even if you’re using Ryobi batteries a Makita battery or even a Bosch battery or DeWalt cordless battery at some point you will need to replace it.

This is to be expected even if you are using a lithium ion battery the simple fact is that even these will eventually stop keeping a charge and start to let you down. Now at this point the first thing you may want to do is just dump it in the bin and buy a new one but consider what impact just chucking it away will have.

These batteries contain all sorts of nasty chemicals that are not very nice to people and the environment. I’m not going to get on a soapbox because you don’t need me to tell you something you already know and that is… recycle it.

Did you know that 95% of some cordless drill batteries are recyclable? The main thing to consider is that just chucking it in the bin and letting it rot in some landfill is probably just going to let all that nasty Nickel Cadmium get into the environment.

To me the environment is such a big issue I find it hard to comprehend and often think “How can my little bit make a difference to millions of people” so I find it easier to think small and just bring it closer to home.

Would you take one of your old tool batteries put it in a glass of water and let one of your kids drink from the glass? Ok this is an extreme example but it makes it easier to see an issue and deal with something closer to home, so what can we do with our old cordless power tool batteries?

Well some companies operate schemes for employees to recycle their old cordless tool batteries and you should ask you health and safety officer if they do run such a scheme. But if you are self employed or a diy’er what can you do, well there is a scheme you can use.

Battery Back is committed to providing over 80,000 FREE collection points over the next 2 years and many of these points will be in schools, colleges, libraries and other public buildings as well as approved supermarkets.

They already have over 1000 FREE collection points in the UK, to find the nearest to you please click here.