In support of Doug's comments, check this out............ I wonder what kind of disposal statements are with these batteries? I bet you they are revising this now................ :)
http:www.support.dell.com/battery/ Regards, Regan Arndt Sr. Engineer TUV Rheinland of North America, Inc. Product Safety West Division Calgary, AB Canada "Massey, Doug C." <[email protected]>@ieee.org on 11/16/2000 10:40:39 AM Please respond to "Massey, Doug C." <[email protected]> Sent by: [email protected] To: [email protected] cc: Subject: FW: EPA Hazardous Materials & Lithium Batteries disposal Hi Jeffrey: As far as the EPA is concerned, Li-ion batteries are not considered as hazardous material. Remember, the EPA is NOT concerned with the safety of your customer, only the effects on the environment. The Battery Management Act is Public Law 104-142, 104th Congress, and there is an EPA publication available, EPA530-K-97-009. The act is concerned with keeping with mercury, lead, and cadmium out of landfills - ie, Ni-Cd and SSLA's (Small Sealed Lead Acid) batteries. For Lithium batteries, the only disposal criteria is DO NOT INCINERATE - the contents are not considered harmful to the environment, but it may explode if heated beyond certain temps. Although it is still a mystery to me why a coin cell exploding in a trash incinerator at 2500 C can cause anyone concern..... As to the UL concerns, the text of the safety warning is given in UL1950 3rd Ed., clause 1.7.17. Note that if the battery is in a service area and not operator accessible, this text need only be in service instructions. So if we're talking about a coin cell Lithium battery, most likely UL will want this text in the reference guide only. This text includes the statement "Dispose of used batteries according to the manufacturers instructions." Now, you can take the low road and say that you aren't the battery manufacturer, but in my opinion you aren't making things easier for your customer - so you should take the initiative to either publish disposal instructions in your operators guide, or make those instructions available to your tech support folks so that if a customer calls in asking they will know what the answer is. If your battery is a custom Li-ion battery pack, then you become the manufacturer, even though you probably did not manufacture the cells themselves. I have recently addressed this issue with one of our products, and it caused me a bit of consternation. As a quick sanity check, I looked on a variety of battery packs used in various laptop and notebook computers to see what text was there - to my surprise, they all differed slightly (all were UL listed products). What I have learned is that the conditions of acceptability in the UL reports for the cells may dictate what the text says. The only thing you can do in this case is to let UL dictate the text to you, as you most likely don't have access to those reports. The main difference will be warning text restricting the upper operating temp, which in most cases will be much higher than anyone is likely to operate your device under. Here is the text on our battery pack: CAUTION: Risk of fire, explosion, or burns. Do not short circuit, crush, heat above 100 C, incinerate, or disassemble the battery. I have seen that temp range go as high as 200 C, all on UL listed products. I can't find a specific temp in the standard or in the practical applications guides, so all I can say in this case is let UL tell you. I do believe it depends on the conditions of acceptability of the particular cell used. You can get a lot of info from the cell manufacturers - Sanyo, Sony, NEC/Moli Energy. Also the RBRC and PRBA might help - independent battery recycling organizations. The upshot is to put the warning text required by UL in the appropriate location, and let your customers know that the batteries are not to be recycled or incinerated - just dispose of normally. I could never figure out how one disposing of a Lithium battery knows whether the trash can you just tossed it in is bound for an incinerator or not. I'm interested in hearing from anyone with more knowledge of proper disposal. The best I could find out from EPA, vendors,RBRC and PRBA is chuck 'em. Hope this helped. Doug Massey LXE, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Collins, Jeffrey [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 4:04 PM To: IEEE EMC-PSTC Forum Subject: EPA Hazardous Materials & Lithium Batteries disposal Group, I've got two general questions regarding hazardous material: 1). Any experience with identifying materials defined as hazardous by the EPA? (Is there a list somewhere??) My customer is interested in steps that should be taken to: * Avoid exposure * Avoid injury * Proper disposal of the material I took a look at the EPA website but it appears not to be straight forward in identifying what is and is not hazardous. We are the Mfg of Telecom equipment so there are no chemicals or fumes associated with our products. I've also looked at the WEEE Directive but this is a US based customer and they are specifically referencing the EPA. 2). Do you provide any instructions / processes regarding the disposal of Lithium batteries for your customers? If so what documents/standards are you referencing??? All replies are appreciated.............. Jeffrey Collins MTS, Principal Compliance Engineer Ciena Core Switching Division [email protected] www.ciena.com ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. 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