On 29 Aug 2002 at 12:24, Walker, Lesley R wrote: > Given that information, and bearing in mind that I am not in > Auckland and that the company may or may not still exist, do > people still think I should consider NiCd?
I have Saft nicads, and I'm not concerned about disposal. When they degrade to unusability, I'll ship them to Saft and have them rebuilt. I won't worry about recycling companies; I'll deal directly with Saft. As I understand it, by EU law, it's their responsibility to take care of them essentially forever, though not for free. I don't know what this will cost, and I don't care. They're darn good batteries and worth keeping; besides, rebuilding has to be cheaper (and environmentally better) than replacement. With this periodic service, I wouldn't be surprised if they outlast me. I'm not being cavalier about this. I'm pretty sensitive to disposal issues. I save up my flashlight cells for the county household hazardous waste disposal, and recycle my lead batteries properly. If you search back through my posts, you'll see several reminders to list members to dispose of battery waste properly. I'm not concerned about the cadmium in my nicads, or yours. I won't junk them and neither will you. Environmental responsibility aside, it's ~economically~ stupid to discard hundreds of dollars (at least) worth of expensive, rather scarce cadmium. The real cadmium hazard isn't EV modules, it's the hundreds of thousands of flashlight sized cells discarded yearly in junked cell phones, mini-vacuums, electric razors, flashlights, and many other rechargeable gadgets. These cheaply built products are essentially (perhaps irresponsibly) designed to be disposable. Hardly anyone, except perhaps some of the folks on this list, actually replaces the battery in these when it wears out in 3 or 4 years. The gadgets just go into the trash can. By that time, the boxes they came in are long gone, and so are the small-print battery disposal warnings on the boxes. This is a much, much larger source of cadmium pollution than EV modules will ever be. However, it sounds like the answer you want for your question is "no." Given that, there's probably not much point to further discussion. So, here you go: No. David Roden Akron OH USA
