Clean your drawers and storage of dead RECHARGEABLE batteries! You can help recycle lithium into NEW batteries! Clean your home and help save the planet!
The Rotary Club of Nevada City is again offering a unique drive thru recycling event at Dave’s Auto Repair, 747 Zion Street, across from Nevada City SPD. On Saturday June 14, 2025 from 10am- 2pm, the public can drop off Lithium-ion rechargeable devices and batteries. Rechargeable batteries will be sent to Redwood Materials, a company that recycles the essential minerals and uses them to make new rechargeable batteries.
Eligible items include cell phones, tablets, laptops, electric toothbrushes, e-shavers, vapes, wireless headphones, Bluetooth speakers, power tool batteries, video game controllers, etc.
All lithium-ion batteries are made of varying amounts of metals like cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium. Your smart phones, laptops and electric vehicles all have batteries made of these same metals.
It’s been said that “one of the largest lithium and cobalt mines in the western hemisphere can be found in the junk drawers of America” as people stockpile these products with little information on how to safely and responsibly dispose of them. If we recover materials from old, end-of-life products, which can be sustainably broken down to their raw metals nearly infinitely, we significantly decrease society’s reliance on newly mined materials.
The problem is, today, few pathways exist to get these old products recycled responsibly.
Rotary is on a mission to collect as many of these old products as possible to sustainably recycle, refine, and remanufacture these batteries here in America.
It’s not necessary to extract the battery from the device; just bring the entire product to be recycled. The recovery of the essential minerals will help ensure the security of American supply chains for electric vehicle batteries and clean energy products.
Please note, this is not an electronic (e-waste) collection event. How to tell the difference? If your item has an electric cord, that’s e-waste, not a recyclable-battery item.
Tell me more at NevadaCityRotary.org or contact news@ncrotary.org.