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Originally Posted by jeff88
Just because it is recyclable and/or recycled, does not mean it is non-toxic. Believe me, I would rather them be recycled, but what I am wondering is if there is an environmentally friendly, non-toxic battery that can also be recycled. You mention these facilities that do everything in their power to not pollute the chemicals, because they know how toxic it would be if it was polluted into the ground. I'm not saying that is a bad thing and I am glad they do it, but if we had a non-toxic battery, that would not be as required.
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Lead that is in the environment and causing problems does not tend to be from lead acid batteries even tho most of the lead that is used world wide is used in lead acid batteries either in use or in recycling of them and most of the lead going in to new batteries is from recycled batteries, demand keeps increasing of course.
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I can think of a few, but what is the accepted meaning of "industry"? An organic, sustainable farm would be a nice place to live next to. Would you put a farm under the industry tab? What about an FSC forest farm and/or mill?
I get what you're saying about the potato battery, but wouldn't any battery of any kind still require some sort of (heavy) metals, which would at least put it on par with any other battery (at least in terms of toxicity)? Also, copper is highly recycled, so you would only have to worry about the zinc (I know copper is still mined, but you could presumably used recycled copper).
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I am under the impression that in a battery like a potato battery that the metals are consumed as part of the function of the battery, that they are not rechargeable and that it's a one way chemical reaction.
Nickle in nickle based batteries is a more valuable metal because it's not as common, copper is already on the list of metals that we will run out of on the next 30-40 years and the price of nickle is much higher then copper already so it's either less common or harder to get.