Given the high cost of hearing aids, one has trouble “throwing them away” when they no longer work! The batteries are recyclable as “button batteries”, and I hope you have found a way to do this where you live. Old devices themselves are a trickier call. Lions Clubs advertise that they will accept used HAs for distribution to needy people, but it’s often hard to make that connection. Easier is returning them to your hearing technician/audiologist. These folks mostly promise to dispose of them ethically, so that dangerous materials will stay out of the landfill. Most manufacturers have a statement to this effect in the booklet that accompanies the HAs. And the technician at Costco told me to bring my old ones in and he’d recycle them responsibly.
I wish there was a good way to recycle gear I use for Sleep Apnea. Masks/headgear/humdifier tanks/heated hoses/machines. Gear I use now doesn’t last nearly as long as gear did when I started about 35 years ago.
Edit: Since I started wearing hearing aids, for the first 20 years I had hearing aids with small replaceable batteries. I’m grateful for your reminder. I’ve had dogs the whole time, and would hate for them to be hurt swallowing batteries.
DaveL
Toronto
The sleep apnea machines are recycleable. Here’s one place that takes them: https://lungsrus.org/cpap-machine-donations/
@MDB thanks…
@mystuart thanks for your suggestion. I know people that passed on their hearing aids in-family They had to find a provider who would setup the hearing aid for the new user.
DaveL
Toronto Canada
If you google “hearing aid donation” you will see there are a lot of place that accept used aids. I don’t know if they have to be working. I sent a few to the Starkey hearing foundation one time. They have a form online.