The Rotary Clubs of Western Nevada County are offering a unique recycling event at the Nevada County Government Center (Rood Center) on Saturday Apr. 15, 2023 from 10am- 2pm. The public can drop off Lithium-ion rechargeable devices and batteries for recycling by Redwood Materials, a company that recycles the minerals and uses them to make new rechargeable batteries. Eligible items include cellphones, tablets, laptops, electric toothbrushes, e-shavers, vapes, wireless headphones, Bluetooth speakers, power tool batteries, video game controllers, etc.
All lithium-ion batteries are made up 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. 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. But 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.
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.
For more information, please visit RedwoodMaterials.com or contact news@ncrotary.org.