SWA 4R Program
The Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County’s 4R Ambassador Summer Program is June 3-7. Students will go behind the scenes of SWA facilities during this one-week Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rethink (4R) adventure. Participants will engage in hands-on activities and field trips focusing on the environment from an integrated solid waste management perspective. Click here for details.
Lithium Batteries: What’s the problem?
The use of lithium batteries is increasing. With expanded use comes increased fire risk. When lithium batteries are improperly disposed of, they can start a fire.
Lithium batteries are easily damaged once they enter the waste stream. When they’re dropped, scraped, crushed or punctured, the lithium inside becomes exposed. When lithium combines with water, it produces highly flammable hydrogen and lithium hydroxide. This combination alone produces a spark.
When this happens inside a garbage or recycling truck or solid waste facility, the resulting spark can start a fire that has devastating consequences. Because the battery is surrounded by solid waste materials, which serve as fuel, the fire quickly spreads. The fire can get out of control and burn for weeks. A fire of this type has the potential to critically disrupt the Authority’s solid waste infrastructure.
How do I identify a lithium battery?
Lithium batteries can be found in the following products (not an exhaustive list):
- Electronic devices, such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, computer peripherals, Bluetooth devices and smart wearables
- Power tools
- Remote car keys
- Vaping devices
- Game controllers
- Digital cameras
- Portable power packs
- Greeting cards
- Electric toothbrushes
- Toys
- Medical equipment
- Smoke/carbon monoxide alarms
- E-bikes and e-scooters
The battery or device containing the battery may list its chemistry on the battery’s case, instruction manuals or product markings. There may also be symbols that state the chemistry or the chasing arrow symbol (three arrows forming a triangle) with the words “Li-ion” below it.
Can lithium batteries be recycled?
Some lithium batteries can be recycled at specialized battery recyclers. But these batteries must never be placed into your blue or yellow recycling bins. If they end up in a bin, they can become damaged or crushed during processing and pose a fire hazard.
Find one of seven Home Chemical and Recycling Centers near you to drop off your lithium batteries to be recycled.
Note: E-bikes, e-scooters and mobility items may have large watt-hour batteries (>300W-H) that are not accepted by the Authority. We recommend contacting the manufacturer or retailer for recycling of these batteries.
Recycling at Home
Recycling is available to all Palm Beach County residents. With your help, we have made Palm Beach County’s recycling program one of the best in the nation! If you currently recycle, we thank you. If you don’t, we encourage you to start.
The SWA understands it can be confusing to know what goes into your yellow recycling bin, what goes into your blue recycling bin and what should be tossed into the trash. Not all recyclable items are accepted for recycling in Palm Beach County’s dual-stream recycling program. The image below tells you exactly what items go into each recycling bin or you can use the search tool at swa.org/isitrecyclable to help you see if a specific item is recyclable in the county’s recycling program.
It’s important to only place the accepted items into your bins. Thank you for recycling right, Palm Beach County!
