Mailing used electronics with lithium ion batteries – internationally?

August 22, 2023 4:20 PM

I'm in the US. I just returned from my local branch of the US post office, where staff informed me that they are forbidden from mailing my package containing used cell phones to an international address. They said they could only mail devices with lithium ion batteries if they were new devices. So … which other carriers can I try?

It was a surprise to me. USPS pages like this one don't mention the distinction between new and old devices. Googling this topic is proving difficult. I don't have time to call half a dozen carriers to figure this out. Maybe other people here already know of other international carriers that will take (for a reasonable price) small packages containing used electronics with lithium ion batteries ?

posted by StrawberryPie to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

There be dragons there.

See https://aecparcel.com/how-to-ship-a-cell-phone-internationally-key-steps-for-the-safest-package-delivery/ and/or https://blog.pssremovals.com/shipping-batteries-overseas-air-and-sea-freight for the gory details.

When it is all said and done, it may be more cost effective to hand the phone to a local recycler and then send cash to whomever to purchase a used phone in their country.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 5:23 PM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

donate-cell-phones
MakeUseOf
Donate Cell Phone
or remove the batteries if you can.
posted by theora55 at 8:10 PM on August 22, 2023

Response by poster: I don't mean to threadsit, but I want to save people the time of posting pointers to resources for recycling. I'm aware of them :-). Thank you nonetheless!
posted by StrawberryPie at 8:54 PM on August 22, 2023

We have this restriction where I live (Ireland) and I usually just don't tell the postal carrier the phone has a battery in it.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:13 AM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

There's a reason for the regulation, people, in that the very small chance that a used/dodgy lithium battery in transit in the post catches fire -- "in the post" being synonymous with "amidst an enormous amount of loosely packed extremely flammable material", a building could burn down, perhaps killing several people.

Please don't mail used lithium batteries if your postal service forbids it. And maybe not even if they don't forbid it.

Safety regulations are annoying when they stop you from doing what you want, but they wouldn't exist as regulations without having had many things go wrong and having extensive property damage and/or people be seriously injured and/or dying.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:44 AM on August 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

Here to support what seanmpuckett said. I'm not super-shy about dodging pointless rules, but illicitly posting lithium batteries has massive potential for destruction and loss of life. Not something to consider doing.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 4:14 AM on August 24, 2023