Maria Baird: What Do You Know About Batteries?

Ask San Francisco residents if they recycle and odds are they will say yes. The City is full of recyclers and many of them have a devotion for the art of reuse that goes far beyond sorting out their glass and plastic, or bundling newspapers for pickup on trash day.

Holly Eric recycles almost everything, from the usual bottles and cans, to odds and ends around the house. "Wine corks, wrapping paper, pieces of fabric, old shoelaces ­ anything you can imagine is donated to day care centers for crafts projects," Eric said.

For Cindy Alvarez, reducing the waste stream doesn't stop at home ­ she practices recycling at work in San Francisco.

"At my office, we try to use both sides of the paper before recycling it," Alvarez said, "and that's been very successful."

But ask those same people if they recycle household batteries, and you'll likely be met with a blank stare. Relatively few people are even aware that those little gizmos that power your portable CD player, your cell phone, your emergency flashlight, even your watch ­ can be recycled.

Darcy Brown hadn't given much thought to battery recycling either, until she spotted an old battery on a San Francisco street.

"I saw this battery lying in a pool of water getting rusty and corroded, and I thought this can't be good ­ people throw these things in the trash. That's got to leach in the ground and into the water system."

Brown, who is the Commercial Outreach Coordinator for the city's Solid Waste Management Program, was in the position to be able to do something about the problem. She knew that Walgreens already sponsored a city disposal program for used hypodermic needles. Why not a similar drop-bin for household batteries?

A number of San Francisco businesses, including Radio Shack and Cole Hardware, already accept used rechargeable and alkaline batteries, the two types of batteries that are most easily recycled. But Darcy Brown said the key to her idea was that the program would be expanded to include more convenient outlets. That includes alkaline and zinc-carbon batteries, as well as rechargeable batteries, and the little button batteries used in cameras and watches.

In fact, each American household throws away an estimated two pounds of batteries a year - in the Bay Area, that's over four and a half million pounds of batteries entering the waste stream annually. Household batteries account for most of the mercury in our trash, and heavy metals like cadmium, contained in batteries, can then permeate the groundwater. Mercury and mercury compounds in batteries are highly toxic to people, wildlife and the environment. Health risks associated with mercury include kidney damage and genetic, neurological and psychological disorders. Cadmium is a confirmed human carcinogen and is poisonous when ingested or inhaled.

By recycling batteries, environmentally conscious San Franciscans can prevent all of these harmful substances from getting into our environment.

"For Walgreens it's a no-brainer ­ and for us it's a tremendous program ­ really groundbreaking," Brown enthused. "It raises the consciousness of people, and gets that guck out of the waste stream and water supply."

Paul Horcher, director of the San Francisco Solid Waste Management Program, says the program is off to a quick start.

"People were bringing batteries in even before the bins were in place, storing them in bags to take in," he said.

In the first month, with minimal publicity, the program has collected three containers full of household batteries ­ nearly 200 pounds of batteries and their toxic components that will be recycled instead of going to the dump.

The battery recycling containers are now available at 47 Walgreens stores throughout the City. For Brown, asking Walgreens to partner with the City in the program was a perfect fit.

"I thought, everybody knows where their Walgreens is, how easy is that?" Brown said. "And it's behavior modification also, taking one more step for taking responsibility for their footprint on the earth."

The batteries are disposed of as hazardous materials, drained of toxic chemicals, and their component metals are melted and recycled.

Recyclers around the Bay Area say they will take advantage.

"Now that I know that batteries bring hazardous chemicals to landfills, I will save my batteries and bring them to Walgreens to get recycled," said Jo Townson.

"I don't go through very many batteries, but I'd certainly recycle them if it were reasonably convenient," said Alvarez. "Dropping them off at a San Francisco Walgreens would be easy enough!"

Maria T. Baird is the public outreach coordinator for the San Francisco Solid Waste Management Program.