is our battery/junk drawer dangerous?

If that's not lithium batteries, I think it's "ok".

Still just in case, you should probably remove the tools that are in this drawer 😀

The key is to ensure that you store any “pouch” lithium batteries away from everything else, and preferably in an airtight container and drained to 20% power.

Dry cell batteries (like the ones in your picture) should be stored in glass or plastic, so if the corrosive electrolytes leak out, they don’t damage anything else; you just have to recycle all the batteries the electrolytes touched.

The danger rating to any person in your household being harmed by the batteries in this drawer is about on the same level as receiving an electric shock from your TV while sitting on your sofa.

If you are creative enough anything can be dangerous, friend.

Dunno if it helps but I put batteries in glass jars. Keeps them from getting contacted by metal things, keeps the leaks contained.

As long as you don't leave it open like that. Otherwise it could be a tripping hazard or you could get a bad bruise grin running into it.

Probably one of the less dangerous things you do on a daily basis.

I can see 2 possibly bad scenarios:

1. Tools with open metal surfaces (left corner) could short circuit a battery, if it touches both poles at once. But most of your batteries are still in packaging.

2. Lithium batteries could heat up and then catch fire. This happens usually to very old lithium batteries while charging. Watch out if their outer shape changes, if they start looking like a fat belly, then get rid of them.

It’s fine. Even if they were lithium batteries —still fine. See battery manufacturers actually design batteries specifically so that they don’t fail catastrophically (🤯 crazy right?) but it’s true. Turns out they have whole-ass warehouses full of them.

Obviously it’s possible for lithium batteries to fail catastrophically, but this isn’t a typical failure mode. Generally catastrophic failures happen when a battery is damaged and or under load.

Typical household batteries are not as energy dense as EV batteries. And are not packed as densely such that a single cell puffing won’t cause a cascading failure.

I do recommend keeping them in bags to contain leaks, coin cells are generally already well packed, but it can’t hurt. It’s also not a terrible idea to write the date you bought them on the bags and properly dispose of them after ~5 years.

Everyone seems to be saying this is super safe, but I wouldn't do this. If nothing else the batteries can leak and therefore you should put them in a container to prevent damaging anything else if that does happen. And yeah I definitely would try not to have metal tools banging around with the batteries, personally.

I don't see any lithium batteries in this picture. Unless that black thing on top is one. I think you're overthinking it

Unless those 9 volts are individually wrapped, I wouldn’t put the screwdriver that close to them. Other than that, it looks fine to me, someone who barely knows more than average about batteries.

I mean, every guy has one of those drawers and I don't think I've ever heard anyone being hurt or dying from an exploding battery storage box; Sooo I'd say you're fine?

If you look on aliexpress, they sell zip cases for batteries that have a foam insert with holes cut for different sizes of batteries. They also have mesh zip pockets inside for your flatter coin cells etc.

We have one and I haven't looked back.

I worry about house fires, so I find this gives peace of mind over shorting batteries. Safety concerns aside, it just helps with overall organisation.

For old/untrusted lithium cells that are waiting to be recycled, i have a clamp shut ammo case from army surplus.

Only thing I'm worried about, is the multimeter of it doesn't have right angled connectors.