The pack is not a brick in the pile
A lithium pack in a truck full of pavers, lumber, or a treadmill will be crushed, and a crushed lithium cell can heat up during the ride or later at the bay. Take packs out of the tools. Tape the terminals. Put the packs in a rigid plastic bin with a lid, and strap that bin where no other cargo can slide onto it. The cab floor, if it stays cool and out of the sun, is often safer than a bed full of stone, as long as the bin cannot jam a pedal. Do not put the bin on a hot exhaust tunnel. Do not toss a pack into a drawer of the toolbox under the sockets. The point of this haul is that the packs arrive in the same shape they left, ready for a battery program, not for the landfill. Swollen or damaged packs get the same bin and a warning to the attendant, and they still do not get crushed.
Separate from the metal and the moisture
Even taped, a pack should not sit in a tray of wet leaves or a puddle of condensate from a dehumidifier. Water and a cracked case are a bad pair. Keep the bin dry. Keep loose screws, wrenches, and rebar ends out of the bin. A tool that bridges the terminals can defeat a sloppy tape job. One layer of tape, pressed down, covering the contacts, is the minimum. Do not drain other fluids into the battery bin to contain a leak. Oils, gasoline, and pool chemicals are household hazardous waste on their own path, not packing material. The bare tools can go to scrap or trash after you ask. They do not need to ride on top of the packs to save a trip to the bed.
Hand the bin over, do not tip it
At the battery drop-off or the hazardous-waste bay, lift the bin out and let staff tell you where packs go. Do not invert the bin into a metal roll-off. If a pack is warm, smoking, or hissing, do not carry it into a building. Get people away and call the local emergency number. For a normal pack, the win is boring: taped, uncrushed, handed over. Check the bed and the toolbox before you leave the site. The pack still in a drill under a board is the one this article was about. Bring it back to the bin before you exit.
Before you go
- Remove lithium packs, tape the terminals, and put them in a rigid bin with a lid.
- Strap the bin where pavers, lumber, and tools cannot crush it, and keep it dry.
- Do not mix packs into gasoline, solvent, or pool-chemical containers.
- Hand the bin to the battery program and do not dump it into a metal pile.
A tool battery left clicked into a drill under a stack of concrete pavers.
Questions people ask
Can I put the bin in the cab?
Yes, if it is closed, out of the sun, and cannot slide under the pedals. A cool cab is better than a bed full of shifting stone.
What if I have only one small pack?
It still gets taped and kept out from under the load. One pack is enough to start a fire if it is crushed.
Search Dumpmapper by ZIP code or city, then call the site before you load the truck. Hours and accepted materials change.