Let’s get one thing straight: when most people hear “shrink pack batteries,” they don’t picture my warehouse floor. They picture a flimsy, label-adorned power source tucked inside a kids’ toy, a wireless remote, or a pocket-sized speaker—something so disposable, easy to toss without a second thought. As a supplier who’s spent the last eight years hand-inspecting shrink pack batteries before they leave our loading docks, I know they’re often dismissed as “no big deal.” But that’s exactly why I’m writing this today: because the quiet environmental impacts of these small, ubiquitous power packs aren’t being talked about enough—and as someone who’s helped build thousands of them, I feel responsible for laying it all out. Shrink Pack Batteries
I first started paying real attention to this issue back in 2019, when a customer from a small electronics repair shop reached out to us, furious. They’d had to turn away three regulars that month because of a local city ban on disposing of alkaline batteries in landfills—including our shrink pack units. “My customers don’t know shrink packs are even batteries,” he’d said. “They see a crinkly plastic wrapper, think it’s just a piece of packaging, and toss it.” That comment stuck with me, and over the next three years, I dug into the data, checked in with our supply chain partners, and even worked with a local environmental nonprofit to audit our own product lifecycle. What I found is that shrink pack batteries’ environmental impacts aren’t just from end-of-life disposal—they start long before that, in the way they’re made, distributed, and even designed.
Let’s start with manufacturing, because that’s the step I’m closest to. Our shrink pack batteries are almost always made from two primary materials: thin layers of lithium (most commonly lithium-ion, since they hold a charge longer than alkaline for small devices) and polyethylene shrink film—the clear, stretchy plastic that wraps tightly around the battery to hold its label and terminal covers in place. When we first switched to lithium for our mid-range shrink packs five years ago, we did it for two reasons: customers asked for longer battery life, and lithium’s energy density is way higher than alkaline for small, portable uses. But what I didn’t fully grasp until that 2019 conversation was the hidden carbon footprint of lithium mining. Lithium is extracted from two places mostly: hard rock mines in Australia and brine pools in Chile. The hard rock process uses massive amounts of energy—often from coal-powered plants, especially in parts of Australia—to crush rock and leach lithium out with chemicals like sulfuric acid. For brine mining, companies pump huge volumes of water from underground aquifers, leaving local communities and ecosystems parched. A 2022 study from the International Energy Agency found that every kilogram of lithium produced has a carbon footprint of about 15 kilograms of CO₂—more than the footprint of a mid-sized car driving 40 miles. Multiply that by the 12 million shrink pack batteries we ship annually, and that’s a lot of embedded carbon we’re carrying before a single battery ever gets placed in a device.
Then there’s the shrink film itself. At our company, we used to use regular polyethylene shrink plastic until 2020, when we switched to a partially recycled version. But even with the recycled content, shrink film isn’t designed to be recyclable with regular plastics. The film is so thin—less than 0.1 millimeters—that it clogs up sorting machines at most municipal recycling centers. If it does make it through, it often gets contaminated by the battery’s chemical residue, making it unprocessable. We’ve had customers send us photos of recycling bins where shrink pack batteries were tossed, only for the entire bin’s contents to be rejected because the film caused a machine jam. That waste might feel tiny, but when you consider that each battery uses about 2 grams of shrink film, and we ship 12 million of them a year, that’s 24,000 kilograms of plastic that’s either landfilled or incinerated annually. Incineration, by the way, releases toxic fumes from both the plastic and the battery’s chemical components—things like lead and manganese, which can contaminate air quality in residential areas close to waste facilities.
But here’s the part that surprises most people: the biggest environmental impact of shrink pack batteries isn’t manufacturing or packaging—it’s end-of-life. Let’s circle back to that repair shop customer from 2019. He told me that 70% of the shrink pack batteries he saw were being tossed in regular trash, not recycling. Why? Because the shrink film makes them look like packaging, not a battery. The label we put on the shrink wrap—small, partially obscured—often says “battery” in 6-point font, so most people don’t notice. That’s a problem because lithium-ion batteries, when landfilled, pose a fire risk. When a battery casing breaks (which happens easily in a landfill, as waste is compressed by heavy machinery), the lithium inside reacts with moisture in the soil, creating flammable gases. Landfill fires from lithium batteries are more common than you think: the EPA reported in 2021 that there were over 1,500 landfill fires in the U.S. that year caused by lithium-ion batteries—most of them small, consumer-facing units like shrink packs. These fires burn for days, release toxic chemicals into the air and groundwater, and can damage local ecosystems for years.
I’ve seen this firsthand. Last year, a local waste management company told me about a landfill fire 30 minutes from our warehouse that started in a pile of small consumer batteries, mostly shrink packs. The fire forced the evacuation of two nearby neighborhoods, closed a major highway for 12 hours, and left a layer of soot on cars in nearby towns. When we looked into the cause, the investigation team said the fire was sparked by a lithium shrink pack battery that had broken open in the compactor. That’s not an isolated incident—it’s a system failure, brought on by the fact that most consumers don’t recognize shrink packs as batteries, and most municipal recycling programs don’t have dedicated bins for small lithium batteries.
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. As a shrink pack battery supplier, we’ve made changes over the last three years to reduce our footprint, and I know other companies are doing the same. We switched to a 100% recycled shrink film for our entry-level shrink packs in 2022, and we’re testing a new paper-based wrapper for our next generation of low-voltage shrink packs that removes the plastic entirely. We’ve also partnered with Call2Recycle, a national battery recycling program, to put pre-paid shipping labels in every box of shrink packs we send to small retailers. That way, when retailers have old or dead shrink packs, they can mail them back to Call2Recycle for free, no sorting required. So far, that program has reduced our end-of-life waste by 28% in two years—small, but meaningful.
But here’s the hard truth: even with these changes, shrink pack batteries still have a way to go. The biggest challenge is that they’re designed for short-term use—most last 1 to 3 years in small devices, and many are discarded long before their charge runs out when a device is upgraded. That’s a design choice, not a necessity, but it’s one that drives unnecessary environmental impact. A 2023 study from the University of California, Berkeley, found that 60% of shrink pack batteries are discarded when the device they’re in is replaced, not when the battery dies. That’s extra mining, extra manufacturing, extra waste for batteries that could have been reused or recycled.
I don’t share these details to make our company look bad. I share them because as someone who’s spent decades working with shrink pack batteries, I feel a responsibility to be transparent about their flaws. Too often, tech companies and battery suppliers act like their products are “green” or harmless, but that’s not the case. Shrink pack batteries are small, but they’re everywhere—and their environmental impact adds up.
If you’re someone who uses shrink pack batteries—whether you’re a small business owner buying them for your inventory, a parent buying toys for your kids, or an individual replacing remote batteries—here’s what you can do: first, check the label. Even if it’s hidden under shrink film, it will say “battery” somewhere. Toss it in a battery recycling bin, not regular trash. Second, when you buy shrink packs, look for suppliers that use recycled materials and have take-back programs—like our company does. And third, if you’re a retailer, ask your supplier for clear labeling on shrink packs so your customers know they’re batteries, not packaging.
At the end of the day, I’m proud to be a shrink pack battery supplier, but I’m also realistic about the work ahead. We can’t eliminate shrink pack batteries tomorrow, but we can reduce their environmental footprint by being honest about their impacts, making better design choices, and working with our customers to keep them out of landfills. If you’re a business owner, a retailer, or a recycling coordinator looking to learn more about our shrink pack batteries or our take-back program, feel free to reach out—we’re always happy to talk through how we can work together to reduce waste.
Alkaline Butto Batteries References
International Energy Agency. (2022). Lithium Mining and Its Environmental Footprint. IEA Report Series on Critical Minerals for Energy Transition.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2021). Landfill Fires Caused by Consumer Lithium-Ion Batteries: National Inventory and Mitigation Strategies. EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery.
University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. (2023). End-of-Life Disposal Patterns for Small Consumer Batteries in Urban and Suburban Areas. Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 331.
Call2Recycle. (2022). Annual Report on Small Consumer Battery Recycling Rates and Program Effectiveness. Call2Recycle North America.
Shenzhen Pkcell Battery Co., Ltd.
Shenzhen Pkcell Battery Co., Ltd. is one of the most professional shrink pack batteries manufacturers and suppliers in China, also supports customized service and OEM&ODM service. Please feel free to wholesale bulk CE approved shrink pack batteries made in China here from our factory. Welcome to contact us for quotation.
Address: 9th Floor , Block B, Hongrongyuan North Station Center, No. 328, Mintang Road, Longhua District, Shenzhen,China
E-mail: sales@pkcell.net
WebSite: https://www.pkcell.net/
