Last night I received a flyer from a car seller with a contest gimmick key code device that lit up. Here were my thoughts on seeing this
- interesting gimmick
- this will be junk in a minute for many people and will go in the garbage
- there has to be a battery in there to light this up
- it’s likely a button cell
- I wonder how safe this is for kids as button cell’s have a significant danger to them
So I decided to see how easy it was to open. It did not have screws in it to keep it closed and I was able to with a flick of a finger nail get it open. On the back in black letters on the black case it says “NOT A TOY”. Here are the pictures below. The black case is 6cm long, and the button cells are 1.1cm in diameter.
I’m quite concerned about a few things below
- button cells must be kept out of the hands of children as there is possible choking, severe burn and/or poisoning hazard if they are swallowed.
- batteries should be recycled and not go in the trash
- while I understand the advertising gimmick at play, this is plain junk
On the chocking, burn, and poising side there has been some recent news about button cells and quite a few collected articles at http://www.poison.org/battery/inthenews.asp
and
http://www.globaltvbc.com/the+dangers+of+lithium+batteries/6442759093/story.html
While the global story deals with a larger button cell compared to the small ones in the pictures above, they are not rare and appear in many kinds of electronics including laptop & desktop computers and toys. The toys require panels with screws to access batteries for the obvious safety reasons or they aren’t even accessible.
To recycle these I suggest that you keep them separate so that they cannot touch each other as current may pass through them depending on if they still hold a charge and how they are stored. There is a small risk of fire otherwise which is more likely in larger batteries or if you have many together. An easy way to do this is to put a piece of tape between them or put them on a piece of tape. Take them to your nearest battery recycler that will accept them.
