Last week I was talking about “DIY Culture: Repair and Recycle” where I show you the way I found to replace an old iPhone 6 and keep using it for a while in 2020. But now, there is still a problem. What I should do with the used battery? The answer is to trash it, but correctly. Here, I will show you how to do it and what more we can learn from this technology.
Li-ion battery is a highly recycle technology, but if you trash it the common way there is a potential risk for fire or burning. Why? Well, inside of this package there is stored energy and it could be liberated if the battery is crushed causing an internal short circuit.
In this picture we can find vital information:
- Caution message: Do not disassemble.
- Recyclable Li-ion technology.
- Capacity: 1810 mAh.
Why does 1810 mAh mean?
Let me do a quick unit conversion: 1810 mAh = 1.81 Ah, here you see how many electric charges are inside a battery. This unit is commonly used to measure battery capacity or in other words how much electric charge can be delivered at the rated voltage (3.82 V for this iPhone 6).
In 2020 I replace this unit of 1810 mAh with a generic one of 2250 mAh (previous post). This is possible due to material science advances. What science is persuading right now is to get more dense store energy. Which means increased the electric charge per volume. Right now, my replacement gives me 24% more power in my device and then I can use my phone all day and still have a 20% battery at midnight.
In the following images, you can see the Battery health and the statistics of my device usage during the last 10 days. I know it depends on my daily use. But here you can see than 80% is the mean. It was a great idea to replace the battery for a newer and denser one. Physically the new battery is not bigger because it maintains the same size (volume).
Come on, Tell me where to recycle it!
There is not just one place where you can deposit batteries. But I will show you how to find them. Millennials taught us the 2020 way. Go and type in your favorite search engine three keywords “Battery, Recycle, your-City”. Here you should change the name of your city to have better results. And in the results you cand find community alternatives. For example:
For Puebla, I found the following post “These places help you t recycle (Puebla) “ where it is explained that Puebla is pushing forward the recycle culture and going into the Circular Economy (Sustentaitable Puebla ). Click on the following map to reach Puebla’s recycle places.
There is another way. If you go to maps, you can do a specific search about “Recycle” and “Battery“. Here you will be able to identify three common places: 1) Best Buy, b) Home Depot and c) Radioshack. It is good to hear about these places. Because those stores are huge companies that sold electronics and are doing a good gesture for the recycling culture. Here is your best opportunity to deposit your electronic trash beginning with those used batteries.
When the old batteries are stored you should take care of isolating both contacts placing masking tape on the (+ Positive) and (- Negative) terminals.
A third way to find is to ask at your nearest university for a battery recycle program. I am near to CU-BUAP and I was asking my college students about battery deposits. And you know what, I found one place at the Electronic Science Department. In the following picture, I want to show you how they are storing their batteries. Today I don’t know what are they doing with them but this is the first step into Recycle Culture. You, I and al the society should do our best effort.
Do you like this post? What else do you want to know? You cand tell us your own recycle adventure. Please give a comment, you know I will do my best in the next research.
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The blog post “I replace the battery of my phone, now what?” is a must-read for anyone who has just replaced their phone battery.
Thanks, Jastin Luna.. At the university, we encourage our students to fight against planned obsolescence. But if we replace the batteries of our gadgets it is important to recycle them to take care of the environment.