Please Don't Assault St. Louis With Your Batteries

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Without fully disclosing where in the STL I live, I will admit that my residence uses well water. I'm happy to say that not only does my well's water taste awesome, it's currently not a detriment to my health. And I'd really like to keep it that way, which is why I am making a plea to the rest of St. Louis' residents: recycle your freaking batteries so that those of us who are on well water aren't sipping on and showering with heavy metal.

When I spoke with Jill at the City of St. Louis Refuse Division, she informed me that technically, everyone can just toss their dead batteries in the trash and not think a thing about it, because the Department of Natural Resources doesn't consider the quantity of hazardous residential material dangerous enough to regulate . But if you're thinking about the big picture and do decide to recycle your old batteries, you'll help lessen the risk of polluting St. Louis' soil and water with lead, mercury, chromium, lithium and other harmful heavy metals. You see, there's only a couple of layers of clay and geotextile separating the batteries in landfills from our soil and H2O, and who wants to learn this lesson the hard way? (Phew, science lesson over.)

Fortunately, it's pretty easy to find a place to recycle your old batteries in St. Louis. To recycle your old rechargeable ones, head here and enter your zip code. It will automatically find all the acceptable drop-off options nearest to you. To recycle the "old-fashioned" kind of batteries, drop them off at one of the 26 recycling centers around the city.