Don’t you have many “unexpected bombs” at home? Without proper handling, these little things will contaminate the environment. When the heavy metals contained in waste batteries diffuse silently into the soil and water sources, they will harm human health and ecosystems like slow poisons.

    Waste batteries contain heavy metals including lead, mercury, and cadmium. These hazardous substances will diffuse into the soil and water sources to contaminate the environment and enter the human body via the food chain to cause serious problems, such as damaging the human nervous system and affecting human brain development. Even worse, without proper recovery but simply dumping them alongside household waste, waste batteries may explode to threaten the safety of cleaners when being compressed in the refuse (garbage) trunk.

    Hence, the Nantou County Environmental Protection Bureau reminds citizens: As a little waste battery can contaminate up to dozens of liters of water, please develop the waste battery recovery habit by handing waste (used) batteries over to cleaners, convenience stores, or large supermarkets for recovery. Apart from reducing the chance of environmental pollution, this can also help save valuable resources.

    Director-General Yi-Shu Li of the Nantou County Environmental Protection Bureau urges citizens to develop the waste sorting habit to place waste batteries, recyclable materials, and kitchen waste separately to facilitate cleaners to collect them. As this can effectively reduce the environmental burden caused by waste, every citizen should contribute to environmental protection in order to build a better living environment.