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This is something I keep meaning to dive into more (and yeah it's a tangent to tablets). I've (perhaps foolishly) tried to get a reaction from a few bloated batteries since nobody seems to want them, but I got nothing.
Water, heat, punctures...nothing

So I figure the batteries were dead (zero charge). But I thought lithium was reactive, so what gives? Does there have to be a charge present to get a reaction? If so, would depleting batteries make them safer? I remember we needed to tape terminals when Boardsort did take them. Is there no difference in a bloated and normal battery as far as danger?

Anywho...

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Preface: I’m not a chemist, I’m a tech. I try not to discuss the outlier because it creates bad habits.

There’s a few things at play here. Right off the top, there is technology (er, science) that is as old as using lithium batteries, that can reduce or eliminate thermal runoff. Quite a few big brands use this in flagships. Many no name brands use them as well because the contents used to make them in the manufacturing country are less costly than standard chemistry.
Then there’s this then-newfangled chemistry from SafeCore that “eliminated” the risk. Which is used by some brands.
Oh, and ever notice lithium is a natural element and we don’t have it just burning all over the planet.

There are multiple components to battery fires. Lithium is a highly reactive and coreactive metal. It gets all happy over meeting other elements and bursts into flame. However over time the reactions inside the battery that create power reduce that reactivity to near zero.
The gels and liquids, in older batteries, are also flammable. The primary cause of the flame is the hot oxidative lithium is igniting everything else.

So why didn’t it burn?
Likely you have been lucky (seriously, stop that!). The very reactions that crest power degrade the lithium. If it’s degraded to the point you don’t get runaway oxidation in air, you don’t have the heat necessary to ignite everything else. A dead or near-dead battery isn’t likely to explode or burn.
Could have been a treated battery. Or a chemsafe type.
Could be the luck of the cosmos.

For everyone’s safety, I’ll focus on the 99%.
If the irs can round at .5 I can round at .99.
Hence, don’t improperly dispose of them. They will burn, burst, or explode.
Even if you don’t care on that end, it’s illegal. Get caught, money and jail time.

Oh, they do check your trash randomly. Look it up. Not often, not every company does (they are suppose to). Random inspections of random bins at random times blah,
I’ve only seen it once in my life. A pickup behind the garbage truck with the hauler’s brand on it. The truck driver and a guy in a T-shirt holding bags over the hopper and slicing them open.
But it does happen.

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