Somehow ended up with my first puffed lipo last night. I think it may have puffed from the charger b/c it felt a little tight going into the battery box, but at the time I didn't think much of it. I ran it probably for 1/2 to 3/4 of it's run time before I had to stop. When taking it out I noticed it was tight coming out and happened to see the side of the pack was slightly split. I always charge well below the rate (it's a 5C charge capable battery, I charge at about 1.5C rate) and balance but I guess it just had enough.

So I researched disposal and it seems that discharging to 0V is recommended using a bulb (the pack is slightly puffed just splitting the case open enough to notice but not even enough to see fully inside). It seems a lot of people use taillights but I've seen headlights mentioned as well. I have an old high beam headlight discharger I used to use for NiMHs, would this be ok to use or will it discharge it too quickly?

Also, I have a LIPO sack I use for storage, but I also have a fireproof box I keep documents in. Would it be ok to use the sack for discharge or should I use the box?

I live in a Condo so I plan to do this in the middle of my concrete patio to keep the risk down if the pack does burn at all.

My guess is that most people just toss it so you may not get many responses on discarding it.
You should take it to a recycling place that takes batteries, but there may not be one in your area. Call your local hobby store and see if you can drop it off there. They may just throw it away anyway, but at least you have a clear conscience

As far as discharging to zero, I think that may be dangerous and inviting a fire. That may be nimh tech, not sure. I'm sure people will chime in on that part of it.

First find on a google search, looks like taking it to zero is the way to do it.
https://sites.google.com/site/tjingu.../lipo-disposal

As for where to do it, do it on top of a thick piece of metal or something on your patio so that if it does flare up you are not left with a permanent stain on your cement.

Discharge to 0V, then place in a bucket of salt water for a couple days. After that you can toss it in your household garbage.

Thanks for the replies - but I'm still looking to understand if using the High beam headlamp was ok or if that was too much of a discharge too quickly compared to a tail lamp bulb that seemed to be the norm. I saw some people had mentioned a high beam but I couldn't find any confirmation or anyone who used one.

Just use whatever you have laying around. Its not like you have to worry about damaging the pack

When cycling packs, we discharge at 35 amps so I don't think a headlight would draw that much amps. I've discharged mine down to Zero using tail light bulb, (2 Amps) and then soak in salt water mixture for a couple of days and then in the garbage it went. Once they're dead, they won't come back. I used a container (1 Quart) so the battery would fit in all the way and added about a cup of salt to it. (stronger is better) When discharging the pack, keep it in a sack or container just to be safe. When they get punctured is what really causes flames! (hard and direct hits).

drop it in salt water, and toss it it trash/recyclables. believe it or not, it's considered bio-degradable after the salt water dip.

So I'm thinking the headlight bulb might have been too fast a discharge rate for it. The pack was only about half charged or less, but it only took about 20 minutes and the pack split and really puffed. I hooked it up to my hyperion to see if it would discharge further (allows a discharge down to 3.0V per cell) but it kept saying it was "done". So now I've put it in it's special salt water bath (in a Bush's baked beans can which fit it perfectly ).

fq06 - I used your advice and put it on an old cookie tin too.

I had a 3s pack puff on me a few weeks ago. Actually, it started puffing months ago and I just recently did something about it. First I put it on an 8 bulb discharger overnight in the driveway, then let it sit for a few days. I noticed standing voltage was 3v, so put it back on the discharger for a couple hours. While it was still connected, I chopped the balance plug off (the wrong end, coulda used that) and twisted all 4 leads together for a dead short. Now I'm just waiting for trash day.