95% of Americans own at least one type of cordless product powered by rechargeable batteries. Americans use an average of five cordless products in their daily lives.

Below are the different types of batteries which touch our lives almost daily.

Lead-Acid Batteries
Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries (Ni-MH)
Lithium Ion Batteries
Lithium Ion Polymer Batteries
Nickel-Cadmium Batteries (Ni-CAD)

Any type of batteries should never be disposed in your trash. Every effort must be made to recycle all types of batteries.

Careless disposal of nickel-cadmium is hazardous to the environment. If used in landfills, the cadmium will eventually dissolve itself and the toxic substance can seep into the water supply, causing serious health problems.

The lead-acid battery has led the way in recycling. The automotive industry should be given credit in organizing ways to dispose of spent car batteries. In the USA, 98% of all lead-acid batteries are recycled.

Lithium (metal) batteries contain no toxic metals; however, there is the possibility of fire if the metallic lithium is exposed to moisture while the cells are corroding. Most lithium batteries are non-rechargeable and are used in cameras, hearing aids and defense applications. For proper disposal, the batteries must first be fully discharged to consume the metallic lithium content. Lithium-ion batteries used for cell phones and laptops do not contain metallic lithium and the disposal problem does not exist.

Corporate America is doing its part to create awareness about recycling batteries.

Office Depot is now collecting used phones and rechargeable batteries for recycling at all 960 Office Depot locations in the U.S. and Canada.

Through HopeLine's recycling efforts, more than 200 tons of electronics waste and batteries have been kept out of landfills. Since October of 2001 when Verizon Wireless launched its national recycling program: