If you have a battery-powered push mower or a riding lawn mower, there will probably come a time when you find yourself with a battery that has stopped working. Like the batteries that cars, boats, and motorcycles use, over time they tend to wear out. Improper battery care can speed up this process, but no battery will last forever. There are certain situations where you can restore a battery and give it a new lease on life, but even this won’t make it immortal. If you’re wondering how to dispose of lawn mower batteries you’ve come to the right place. I’ll do my best to provide some information about when and where to ditch your old batteries.
How to Dispose of Lawn Mower Batteries (The Short Version)
The most direct answer I can give to how to dispose of old lawn mower batteries is: at a store that sells batteries, at an electrical recycling center, or at a hazardous waste site. Both lead acid and lithium batteries contain toxic materials so they cannot simply be thrown away.
Wait a Minute! Before You Dispose of Your Lawn Mower Battery…
If you think that your battery might be toast, be sure to investigate a little bit before going to buy a new one. There are a ton of reasons why batteries can underperform or even appear to not be able to hold a charge.
In a lot of cases, there could be something that is draining power from the battery and causing it to frequently die or lose charge faster than normal. Also, in certain cases, there is the possibility of restoring a used battery that seems to be malfunctioning. Knowing what drains a lawn mower battery and how to restore a lawn mower battery can be super useful.
Let me try to give you a basic idea of how to determine whether your battery is ready to be disposed of or just needs some maintenance. The first thing you should do if you’re using a lead acid battery is check the cables to make sure they’re tight, and also check the battery for any corrosion. If neither of these are issues, you should look at the acid level in your battery. If the level is lower than recommended, you can add distilled water to bring it back up before throwing it on a charger.
If your battery still won’t work as it should, you’ll probably want to look around for a replacement. I would recommend bringing your old battery with you when shopping for a new one. This way you can be sure to get the right size and avoid any core charge deposits from retailers. These deposits vary from state to state but are used to encourage proper battery disposal. Usually, the required deposit is twenty bucks or so.
Where + How to Dispose of a Lawn Mower Battery
If you’re sure that your battery has reached the end of the line, you’ll need to get rid of it and buy a new one right away so that your yard won’t turn into a jungle. Figuring out where to dispose of lawn mower batteries doesn’t need to be overly stressful, and you should have at least a couple of options near your home. I’ll explain a little bit about how you can return batteries to retailers, recycle them, or bring them to a waste collection site.
Battery Retailers
My top pick for how to dispose of lawn mower batteries is to go to a retailer. Businesses that take batteries almost always do so for free. All you will need to do is bring in your old battery and drop it off with an employee. Calling ahead if you’re unsure if they accept old batteries isn’t a bad idea.
Since your current battery is dead you’ll probably need a new one as well. This way you can kill two birds with one stone. However, it is usually just bigger stores that will accept old batteries. The Home Depot battery recycling and Lowes battery recycling programs are good examples of this. Partnered with a nonprofit battery recycling program, these retailers will gladly take old batteries off your hands.
But, those companies aren’t the only ones that will dispose of old or damaged batteries for you. I mentioned the deposit some states require when buying a battery, and Walmart is a good example of a company that uses such a policy. If you want to avoid paying a bit extra upfront, you should bring your old battery with you to trade in when you buy a new one.
Electrical Recycling Centers
If you’ve got an unlucky selection of stores that sell batteries, you’ll want to look for your local recycling center. The website www.Earth911.com can be super useful for figuring out where this center might be. Some recycling programs will take batteries for free, but others charge a little bit for disposal.
Another option is mail-in recycling. There are a few recycling companies you can choose from if you want to ship your battery somewhere for disposal, but I haven’t heard of any that do it for free. Most of the time you’ll have to buy a container from the company and then they’ll email you a shipping label to print. This can be a nice option if you would prefer to have the battery picked up straight from your doorstep.
Hazardous Waste Sites
While some places might not have a dedicated site where you can recycle electrical materials, most counties will have a site where you can get rid of all kinds of hazardous waste. In my experience, it’s usually a bit more costly to go through a dump or waste site, but they’ll definitely get the job done. At the very least, it’s better to pay for proper disposal rather than getting caught mishandling toxic material or fined for illegal dumping.
Practices You Will Want to Avoid When Disposing of a Lawn Mower Battery
Knowing how not to dispose of lawn mower batteries might seem pretty straightforward, but I want to talk a little bit about why disposing of batteries the wrong way should be avoided at all costs. Batteries that are thrown in the trash end up in landfills and as they decay, all of their toxic chemicals leak out. This contributes to air and water pollution in a major way and obviously is bad news for environmental and human health.
The same process occurs to batteries that are littered on the side of the road or dumped illegally in another way. Since it’s so easy to recycle batteries, and so many options are available, you might as well dispose of your lawn mower’s battery the right way.
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