Letters to the Goddess of Garbage
UsedNews, Summer 2010 edition
Dear Goddess of Garbage,
I had the strangest thing happen. I knocked over a glass of water the other day. The glass was sitting on my desk. The water splashed over my cell phone. My phone caught fire. It gave off sparks and flame for about a second, then it went out. Why did this happen? I guess, since my cell phone is "officially" dead, I should throw it into the garbage? Will my new phone explode in the rain?
Thanks,
Burning On Water
Dear Goddess of Garbage,
I had the strangest thing happen. I knocked over a glass of water the other day. The glass was sitting on my desk. The water splashed over my cell phone. My phone caught fire. It gave off sparks and flame for about a second, then it went out. Why did this happen? I guess, since my cell phone is "officially" dead, I should throw it into the garbage? Will my new phone explode in the rain?
Thanks,
Burning On Water
Dear BOW,
While I can’t be positive what happened without more information, I have a guess. You have experienced an amazing chemical reaction. Welcome to the 35th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust! You see, when your
cell phone got wet, you mixed water with the element lithium, which is the
metal in your cell phone’s battery. The lithium reacted with the water and
made a new compound called lithium hydroxide. This process creates a great amount of heat and free hydrogen. Hydrogen is an explosive gas. When hydrogen is heated in the presence of oxygen, it burns. Therefore, your phone "caught fire" because of water. Now here's an amazingly crazy fact: When that free hydrogen reacts with oxygen in the air, it combines back into water again. You actually end up with the exact same amount of water you started with from your spilled glass! Isn’t chemistry fun? As for your second question, should the phone go into the garbage, I would say absolutely not! Your phone may contain cadmium, lead, nickel, mercury, manganese, lithium, zinc, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, and copper. Each of these elements has been extracted from the Earth. Mineral extraction requires a great amount of energy, creates a lot of pollution, uses a lot of water and has a big carbon footprint. Once you have spent that energy, it makes no sense to throw it away. Instead, you can take your phone to NextStep Recycling. If your phone is "officially" dead, they will recycle the components. If the only problem is that your phone's battery is dead, they will make the phone available to someone else to use. Regardless, enjoy your new phone and keep it out of water. In regards to rain, your phone won’t “explode” in the rain, but if it gets too wet it might cause the electronics to short out, so I’d keep it dry.
The Goddess
Dear Goddess of Garbage,
My friend told me I can only recycle aluminum cans, not aluminum foil. Why not? I thought aluminum was valuable.
Yours Truly,
Aluminum Waster
Dear AW,
Don't worry, AW, your friend is misinformed. Many people believe that aluminum foil can't be recycled. Fortunately, this is not correct. Aluminum is indeed valuable, as you suggest, and aluminum foil can be put into your comingle recycle bin. If you don't have access to the comingle system, you can take foil to the local transfer station. (Look on page 5 of the UsedNews to find the transfer station nearest you.) However, if you want your foil to make it through the recycling process, you need to wad it up into a ball about the size of a softball. If you leave it flat, it will probably get torn up and fall through the system or end up in the wrong place. Have fun crushing up your clean and dry aluminum foil.
The Goddess
Do you have questions for the Goddess? Send them to info@bringrecycling.org or 4446 Franklin Blvd., Eugene, OR 97403.
I had the strangest thing happen. I knocked over a glass of water the other day. The glass was sitting on my desk. The water splashed over my cell phone. My phone caught fire. It gave off sparks and flame for about a second, then it went out. Why did this happen? I guess, since my cell phone is "officially" dead, I should throw it into the garbage? Will my new phone explode in the rain?
Thanks,
Burning On Water
Dear BOW,
While I can’t be positive what happened without more information, I have a guess. You have experienced an amazing chemical reaction. Welcome to the 35th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust! You see, when your
cell phone got wet, you mixed water with the element lithium, which is the
metal in your cell phone’s battery. The lithium reacted with the water and
made a new compound called lithium hydroxide. This process creates a great amount of heat and free hydrogen. Hydrogen is an explosive gas. When hydrogen is heated in the presence of oxygen, it burns. Therefore, your phone "caught fire" because of water. Now here's an amazingly crazy fact: When that free hydrogen reacts with oxygen in the air, it combines back into water again. You actually end up with the exact same amount of water you started with from your spilled glass! Isn’t chemistry fun? As for your second question, should the phone go into the garbage, I would say absolutely not! Your phone may contain cadmium, lead, nickel, mercury, manganese, lithium, zinc, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, and copper. Each of these elements has been extracted from the Earth. Mineral extraction requires a great amount of energy, creates a lot of pollution, uses a lot of water and has a big carbon footprint. Once you have spent that energy, it makes no sense to throw it away. Instead, you can take your phone to NextStep Recycling. If your phone is "officially" dead, they will recycle the components. If the only problem is that your phone's battery is dead, they will make the phone available to someone else to use. Regardless, enjoy your new phone and keep it out of water. In regards to rain, your phone won’t “explode” in the rain, but if it gets too wet it might cause the electronics to short out, so I’d keep it dry.
The Goddess
Dear Goddess of Garbage,
My friend told me I can only recycle aluminum cans, not aluminum foil. Why not? I thought aluminum was valuable.
Yours Truly,
Aluminum Waster
Dear AW,
Don't worry, AW, your friend is misinformed. Many people believe that aluminum foil can't be recycled. Fortunately, this is not correct. Aluminum is indeed valuable, as you suggest, and aluminum foil can be put into your comingle recycle bin. If you don't have access to the comingle system, you can take foil to the local transfer station. (Look on page 5 of the UsedNews to find the transfer station nearest you.) However, if you want your foil to make it through the recycling process, you need to wad it up into a ball about the size of a softball. If you leave it flat, it will probably get torn up and fall through the system or end up in the wrong place. Have fun crushing up your clean and dry aluminum foil.
The Goddess
Do you have questions for the Goddess? Send them to info@bringrecycling.org or 4446 Franklin Blvd., Eugene, OR 97403.
