The Great Battery Roundup: An Opportunity For Spring Cleaning And Help For The Environment

Scour your backyard storage shed! Grapple through your garage! Poke around your carport!

In celebration of spring, AAA Connecticut Motor Club and its team of battery service professionals need help hunting down used, lead-acid vehicle batteries that have somehow, someway not made their way back into their natural habitat: the recycling plant.

From April 23 until May 5, motorists are encouraged to turn in used batteries from cars, trucks, boats, and motorcycles at any one of AAA’s Approved Repair Garages as part of 7th Annual Nationwide Great Battery Roundup. In addition, motorists may drop off batteries at the AAA Service Center at 27 Dodge Avenue, North Haven, between 9 am and 4 pm.

Each returned battery will generate a $1.50 charitable donation for The Tommy Fund, an organization affiliated with Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital that provides emotional, educational, medical, and recreational support to children with cancer and their families.

Among the garages participating in the Roundup are Bridgestone/Firestone in Brookfield; Bridgestone/Firestone Inc, Federal Towing & Car Care, and Honda, all in Danbury. Participating garages are set up across southern Connecticut for a full list of drop-off centers call AAA at 203-765-4AAA (203-765-4222).

Last year, nearly 22,000 batteries were collected and recycled as part of the National Roundup. Connecticut Motor Club alone collected 80 batteries last year.

A 95 percent recycling rate makes lead-acid batteries a highly recycled product. But with thousands of batteries replaced every day by consumers, some strays still slip through the cracks of the recycling system. Some are illegally disposed of in dumpsters, water sources, or landfills; others are simply sitting in a forgotten corner of someone’s garage or storage shed where they could contaminate soil and ground water, explode, or become a source of lead poisoning to humans and animals.

Each car battery contains about 21 pounds of lead and one gallon of sulfuric acid. Almost all parts of a battery can be recycled. The lead terminals and internal lead plates can be used in new batteries. The plastic casing is melted and recycled into new battery cases and other parts. Sulfuric acid can be reused and neutralized on a limited basis or it can be converted to sodium sulfate, a product used in fertilizer and dyes.

When bringing batteries to one of the local collection sites, AAA suggests consumers:

*Wear gloves and safety glasses.

*Store the batteries upright in a cardboard box or plastic container when transporting them so they won’t shift or tip over in a moving vehicle.

*Use a leak-proof container if the battery case is cracked or leaking.

*Don’t smoke near batteries or expose them to an open flame.