Opportunities Rechargeable batteries. The use of recyclable batteries in many devices can help to reduce the quantity of batteries disposed by your facility. By reducing the amount of batteries procured and disposed of, you can help reduce the amount of environmentally harmful wastes discharged by your facility and also save money. The following table provides a cost analysis for a typical rechargeable battery as compared to disposable batteries over a three-year period. Although the disposable battery's initial procurement cost per battery is about 6.7 percent of the rechargeable battery, its total procurement costs, over the three-year period, are almost 60 times the rechargeable battery's costs.
Source reduction is one of the keys to pollution prevention.
Substituting rechargeable batteries for conventional batteries can reduce the number of batteries procured and disposed by a facility. In addition, a battery recycling program could enable your facility to maintain an inventory of the batteries procured, used, recycled, and disposed within the facility. This can be accomplished through establishing policies to require that old batteries be exchanged to obtain new ones. By doing this, an efficient record of all batteries used can be maintained, and facilities can ensure that batteries are being recycled and not disposed as waste. Spreadsheet and computer database programs can be used to establish an inventory system.