Some posts in a recent topic raise an interesting question.
What’s your team’s experience with faulty batteries, or just those that are too old to hold a useful charge any more? How do you dispose of them?
To stay on theme with the thread title let’s call this ‘Throw em in the brig until he’s sober’
After a hard drop/hit (can’t recall what caused it precisely), we had a leaking battery and had forgotten our ‘5 gallon Homer Bucket’ that serves as the best method to store a hazardous battery til it’s safe to dispose of at your convenience later. We had to borrow one from the Chimera’s and then replaced it the next day.
We have a Uline spill kit with neutralizer spray, long rubber gloves, goggles and absorbent pads. This travels with our pit always, but the bucket should also be thought about. Once the spill is done you still have to do something with the battery, pads, etc. Odds are someone has a bucket if you are in a pinch like us and need to borrow/replace later.
This is another teams list I could find and it’s a good alternative if you don’t want to buy an ‘official’ type of kit from Uline, make one at home! Richardson Area Wide Robotics Teams - Battery Spill Kit
Instead of the neutralizer spray it uses baking soda, and instead of pads, it’s kitty litter. Works just as well and is something common most teams can find in their own homes already. Also includes good info and a video of you haven’t seen it all done before.
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After this, we cleaned up with some baking soda, wrapped in plastic bags, and brought them to a local electronics recycler.
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We use weak-but-functional batteries for lab powering bots/mechanisms under development. There’s a lot of use for a 2+ year old battery even if you don’t want to use it in comps.
For disposal, I’ve sometimes been able to return them as a core when buying some other lead-acid battery. Failing that, my city takes them for recycling (drop-off, not curbside pickup).
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Make sure to store damaged batteries in a plastic container. A couple garbage bags will work as well. Metal, glass, and cardboard will all react with sulphuric acid.
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anyone know if autozone takes frc batteries? i know my local autozone gave me gift cards for those tiny UPS batteries, and im sure the team could buy tools or something from there
Anywhere that takes car batteries like that, will most likely take lead acid for free. Because lead acid batteries are just lead, sulphuric acid, and plastic, they’re super cheap to recycle. If you have a ton you can take them to a scrapyard for like 10-20c a pound.
then autozone for sure, $10 per battery is a steal, and apparently (according to the last person i called) their “hub” is nearby, and that place has no daily limit
Our local scrap yard gives cash for lead acid batteries. The current price is $0.33 per pound.
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We take ours to O’reilly Auto Parts, they give us $10 in store gift cards per battery.
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Info on Autozone Gift Card: How to Dispose of Car Batteries - "Where Can I Bring My Old Car Battery?"
“Or if you have an old battery laying around to get rid of, bring it into any AutoZone location and receive a gift card valued at $10”
Sometimes they say they don’t have any of the physical cards to give you, but if you ask they can just apply it to a transaction. Occasionally I do get the card, which actually makes the whole thing more convoluted because I only return a battery when I’m buying something anyway.
If the employee can’t figure it out, or keeps telling you they need a receipt/etc, mention a “green battery procedure”. I hear that whenever a manager has to come over and figure it out.
I’ve done probably 20 of these now, from FRC batteries down to UPS and Barbie Jeep batteries, and a few actual automotive batteries too (usually after all of the acid disappears).
IDK what frc-related stuff there is to get at autozone, almost everything there is overpriced from RockAuto. Maybe the oil + filter bundle deal.
Some computer UPSs take robotics batteries.
May not be good enough for robot competitions, but may be better than the ones in an old UPS
Are your local O’Reillys still doing this? All of mine stopped after this policy change rolled out in fall 2022. 
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Replacement fuses for the Mini Power Module and low-amperage slots on the PDH are the main thing I can think of. Probably a better value elsewhere, but you might as well get them if you’re not going to use the card on anything else.
We had a lot of faulty batteries appear last year, probably due to pulling the terminals out when tightening grasshopper nuts.
We went through the proper procedure of baking soda and all that. They stood until our annual battery drive where we disposed of them with a bunch of others that we collect.
Our battery rotation cycle is comp to programming (highest resistances+factor at full charge) go to them. Once they start reporting issues, we test the problem battery and then if it doesn’'t fulfil any criteria of roughly 100% reported charge or has a resistance over 0.03, we get rid of it. Depending on the quality, we may remove the cables as well if there are no leaks.
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This is a good idea, so long as you have enough plastic buckets/bins to store them long term. Certainly beats driving out to the recycling place/AutoZone/junk yard for a single battery.
Yeah I brought in 9 batteries a few weeks ago! Maybe it depends on the store
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Brake cleaner - the world’s best degreaser.
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Don’t they have a bunch of generic hand tools?
They have the $3 six in one screwdriver 
We use old SEALED batteries for carpet weights.