Disposal of smoke and co2 detectors

[David DeBoer]

Hello,

It's time to replace my smoke and co2 detectors. What is the best way to dispose of the old ones?

Thanks for your thoughts..

[Joseph Meehan]

I put mine in the trash. I suppose you could start a collection of them?

[Jim Elbrecht]

Oh, you sinner!

You're supposed to return them to the manufacturer- [but trash disposal is OK once the battery is removed]

BTW- How about those 'green' CFL's? Just a little mercury. Call your local solid waste management authority for information on hazardous waste collection.

Jim

[Steve Barker]

1. why do you have a co2 detector?
2. throw them in the trash.

[Mac]

bet that sucker goes off all the time. :)

[Joseph Meehan]

My local authorities say to send them with the regular trash. That is the new ones not the old (non-green) and non compact) tubes.

Thanks for the information and correction. I will go forth and sin nor more ... at least related to smoke detectors.

[William.Deans]

Greetings,

Most have a small amount of radioactive substance inside. The substance is Americium-241 and is made in nuclear reactors, a decay product of plutonium-241. Your best bet is to remove this tiny fleck and feed it to your mother-in-law. You probably won't do her much harm, but it will put a smug smile on your face and a certain spring in your step. The remainder can be safely discarded.

Hope this helps, William

[mm]

I think most of them are radioactive. If you got enough of them together, we could build a bomb. All that enrichment stuff is baloney. Just add some enriched flour.

[mm]

It says:

Americium shielded inside of your detector. The ingredient is shielded by a metal chamber within the plastic casing of the detector. On your wall, this material poses little threat;

Little threat! Until now I thought I was safe. Now I'm being threatened. Where is my shotgun? I'm going to blow that sucker off the ceiling.

Wait..it said it was dangerous on the wall. Mine is on the ceiling. Maybe I'm safe.

[Joseph Meehan]

I imagine it is close to the threat of the glow in the dark watches.

Personally I worry a lot more about all those power plants that have yet to be de-commissioned and no one seems to worry about.

[mm]

My brother had a watch with a radium dial. They don't make those anymore. Stopped in the 50's or maybe 60's. Maybe after people from the U. of C. and Las Alamos like Enrico Fermi died of radiation. (just guessing)

I think there was later glow-in-the-dark that wasn't radioactive. Probably didnt' work well.

But I was kidding anyhow, as I hope the rest of my post showed. :)

["Fat Tony" D'Amico]

You can throw away 3 or 4 of them at a time with the regular trash. If you had several hundred or so ionization type smokes to throw away the radioactivity detector at the dump will sound, and that won't be a pleasant thing for the garbage truck driver or anyone else involved.

CO detectors contain no radioactive material.

[clifto]

AFAIK that's based on tritium, which is radioactive.

[Goedjn]

Well, if they's got radioactive emitters you should cast them into blocks of concrete, and ship them to a mountain in Nevada, because them there radioactive materials are clearly far more dangerous in a landfill than they are on your wall.

or you could drop them in a nearby trash can.

If the plastic casing has a recycling number on it, and it's one that you have a recycling path for, you could separate the plastic and trash the rest of it.

No, wait... Extract the radioactive emitter, pulverize it, and smear it on the luggage of someone that you don't like just before they try to leave the country.