Yesterday, I had a disturbing thought - a questions really. It's only disturbing because I did not know what answer is. I was gazing at a hybrid vehicle and I wondered at the fuel cell. How do you dispose of the battery? Can you just throw it away when it is no longer being used? Does it get recycled? Is it toxic like nuclear waste? I mean you can't just can't throw away an alkyline battery without polluting the environment. Could the batteries that power our cars be worse? More disturbing to me, why isn't anyone in the media talking about it? Could some people be hiding dangers in order to make more money.
The good news is that there are answers. I read a couple of articles online and found out that Honda, Toyota, and Ford all claim that their batteries last for the life of the car (160,000 miles). And that the batteries are not rechargeable nickel cadmium (which are toxic to life) but NiMH batteries that can be recycled. The problem is that I only found references to Toyota having a comprehensive recycling program and no comment from Ford or Honda. I'm not saying that they don't have one but that I didn't find anything. So according to the articles I read, I guess there is no concern. I might write later about this. I want know why the media is not talking about any of this.
Here are the articles I found:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/should_we_be_wo_1.php#ch02
http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html