WORKIN' 9 TO 5

Jimoteè Chamameé

#my old phone looks like this on my shelf lmao #im too scared to touch it to throw it away #idk what trash this even goes into when its at this point

The pillow-shaped object here used to be the phone’s battery. It’s not a battery anymore. Now it’s a balloon full of corrosive, pyrophoric chemicals and hydrogen gas and it’s one puncture away from burning your house down. I am 100% serious. You should be scared to touch it.

But you gotta touch it, because you gotta get it out of your house before the pressure builds up to the point where the balloon pops. This isn’t going to happen soon – there is no need to panic – but it will happen eventually.

And, indeed, it doesn’t go in the ordinary trash. You put this in the ordinary trash and you’re gonna set the garbage truck on fire. Don’t do that to the garbage collectors, their job is hard enough already.

In order to get a battery in this state out of your house safely, you need a fireproof container. If you can afford to go out and buy something, the thing you want to buy is a “fire bucket” or “ash bucket.” Read the label carefully, because there are several different things sold under those names. You don’t want a regular old bucket for carrying water to be dumped on a fire. You want a bucket that has been tested to hold things that are currently on fire, without catching fire itself, cracking, melting, or emitting toxic fumes. If you can find something certified for flammable hazardous waste, that’s ideal, but the kind that’s intended for dumping out a charcoal barbecue when the cookout is over should also be fine.

If you can’t afford to buy something, your best bet from things you already have is a cast-iron cookpot, often sold as a “Dutch oven.” Any other kind of metal pot should also be fine. (In an earlier version of this post I was worried about aluminum pots melting, but current research says the melting point of aluminum is well above the typical temperature of a battery fire.) However:

Do not use a pot with a PTFE-based non-stick coating. If the battery does explode, the fire will be hot enough to degrade a PTFE coating, producing toxic smoke. (Not that you should breathe the smoke from the battery fire either, but PTFE breakdown products are worse.)

Do not use anything painted or with plastic parts. The fire will be hot enough to melt or degrade coatings and plastics that weren’t engineered to resist this kind of fire. Oven-safe is not good enough, a battery fire is roughly twice as hot (in degrees Celsius) as the highest setting on a kitchen oven. Exception: enameled cast-iron cookware should be fine.

Do not use anything made of glass or ceramic. Even if it’s old Pyrex, safe for stovetop use, a battery fire is liable to put a lot of heat into a small area very fast, which is the worst-case scenario for thermal expansion cracking.

Whatever container you use must have a lid, made of the same materials; not one of those flimsy one-size-fits-all lids they sell for use with frying pans, nor one partially made of glass or plastic. You may have to throw away the container along with the battery, so don’t use a really nice pot that you’d like to keep cooking in.

The other thing you should get, if at all possible, is enough ordinary sand to fill your fireproof container halfway. This is to prevent the battery from rattling around inside the container when you move the container. It will also reduce the chances of burning liquid splashing out of the container if the battery pops. If you cannot get pure sand, dry clean dirt will also work, but you need to find some with as little burnable material (e.g. roots and dead leaves) as possible.

The battery is not likely to pop and catch fire from gentle handling, but it is still a good idea to wear safety goggles and fireproof gloves while handling it directly. Regular rubber gloves are worse than useless here; they will melt onto your skin if exposed to fire.

Once you have these things:

If it is possible to remove the battery from the device it used to power without cutting or tearing anything, do that. Only the battery is hazardous waste; the rest of the device is just inert electronics and can be taken to a regular electronics recycler, or, even better, given to someone who can reuse it. If you would have to do damage to something in order to get the battery out, though, it’s safest to leave it attached. The site iFixit (not linked so this continues to show up in tags) often has instructions for removing batteries from phones that the manufacturer didn’t intend to be taken apart by mere mortals.

If you were able to get sand, fill your fireproof container halfway with sand. Make a little hollow that’s big enough for the battery (and device, if it’s still attached). Put the battery in the hollow and scoop sand over it. You don’t want a lot of weight on the battery but you do want it to be covered with sand.

If you couldn’t get any sand, the next best thing is to put the battery on the bottom of the empty container and tape it down gently with regular old masking tape.

Put the lid on and tape it shut, using regular old masking tape. Don’t try to seal the crack, just use enough tape that the lid will stay on if the container gets bumped.

Put a label on the container, something like “DEFECTIVE LI-ION BATTERY – FIRE HAZARD”.

It is now reasonably safe to move the container around. However, if the battery does explode, the container will leak smoke and get hot, so keep it in a well-ventilated area and away from things that will be damaged by heat. Don’t leave it anywhere that will get hotter than about 90F/30C (most importantly, do not leave it in your car if your car is parked in direct sunlight); high temperatures can set the battery off when it’s like this.

You need to find either a hazardous waste disposal site, or an e-waste recycler that will accept defective Li-ion batteries. I can’t help with that because I have no idea where you live.

However, your local fire department, if you have one, will probably be happy to help. Call their non-emergency number. Nothing is on fire yet, so this isn’t an emergency, but things that can easily start a fire are still within the fire department’s responsibilities. Tell them you have a phone with a bulging lithium-ion battery, you put it in a fireproof container, and you want to know how to dispose of it safely.

If the fire department tries to tell you this isn’t dangerous or it’s okay to throw it out in the regular trash (with or without fireproof container), hang up on them and write a cranky letter to your local government representatives, then keep looking for a proper disposal site.