3 ms·

Are batteries renewable?

• ben_w 3y ago
  Yes, batteries are renewable. If you burn coal, almost all of it turns into a gas. Even if a battery catches fire, it mostly turns into a pile of solid metal oxides and water vapour, the water vapour rains into the ocean in a few days, the rest is close enough to the stuff you mine out of the ground you can always just use those same mining etc. processes from the initial production to turn it back into another battery. The only stuff that doesn't end up in a conveniently reprocessable form is the carbon used in any graphite components or plastics etc., which we could get from trees (like we do with lumber in general) but which we almost certainly don't at present. Batteries are also much easier to recycle if they don't catch fire.