I have almost a decade’s worth of various rechargeable lights, power banks, etc gathering dust in various nooks and crannies in my home, many of which I haven’t touched in years
What are the chances they’ll go spicy pillow on me and give me a sudden viking funeral?
The sensible solution is to round them up and throw them into the ocean as food for the electric eels.
Fully discharged batteries (which they will be if they’ve been sitting for a while) basically can’t catch fire.
Low potential energy (discharged battery), low danger. High potential energy (charged battery), more danger.
Something like an ebike battery is scary because that’s a lot of potential energy in a thing that takes all sorts of bumps and environments, and then you charge it in/near where you sleep
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You should be at least somewhat worried, especially if they are cheap electronics. I’d at least gather them in one spot you can check on more easily.
Uh oh. Guess I have to round them up.
Edit: Well, the batteries in the three ancient cell phones in my desk drawer haven’t swollen up at least
When I discovered a swollen battery that popped an old phone case, I looked it up, and the consensus was that they’re not dangerous at that point. I still stuck the whole thing in a spare cooking pot I had with the lid on
if you don’t need them I definitely recommend taking them to an e waste center for proper disposal
I’ve had plenty of swollen lithium batteries, never had them catch fire. That’s not to say its impossible by any means, just that its not as inevitable as people say. Just keep your devices somewhere you can keep an eye on them and you should be fine. If you can reuse them in some way or recycle/donate them, even better. Lithium cannot go in the trash, so look into local options for safe disposal.
If you’re truly worried about them, charge them up partially (40-60%) and have them in whatever coldest, driest place in the house you have.
The problem is sealed plastic things like power banks that you have to basically destroy to get a look at the battery. I don’t think you’re allowed to just drop them as is into a battery collection box either
Also what if the battery is swollen when you start jamming a spudger into the casing
Also also most things powered by a battery don’t even have a way to display how much power’s left
It’s pretty sketchy when you pry off the battery but the glue so strong that you rip a hole into the battery trying to take the device apart.
