Roughly 94,000 lithium coin batteries sold under the LiCB brand are being recalled because their packaging doesn’t meet a federal safety law written specifically to keep toddlers from getting into them. The CPSC recall, dated May 14, 2026, covers CR2032 3-volt lithium coin batteries sold on Amazon.com starting in February 2026 for about $6 a pack. The batteries lack the child-resistant packaging and warning labels required under Reese’s Law, the 2022 federal statute passed specifically because swallowed coin and button batteries can burn a hole through a toddler’s throat in a matter of hours.
What’s actually wrong with these batteries
The CR2032 is one of the most common coin batteries in American households, used in everything from key fobs and remote controls to bathroom scales and children’s light-up toys. CPSC’s issue with the LiCB-branded packs isn’t a manufacturing defect in the battery itself; it’s the packaging around it. Reese’s Law, named for a Texas toddler who died after swallowing a button battery, requires that coin and button batteries sold in the U.S. come in child-resistant packaging and carry visible warning labels about the ingestion hazard. The LiCB packs did neither, which is what triggered the recall rather than a product malfunction.
Why the packaging requirement exists at all
The danger with coin batteries isn’t abstract. Research from Nationwide Children’s Hospital found that battery-related emergency room visits among children more than doubled over a recent decade, rising from one ER visit every 160 minutes to one every 75 minutes nationwide. Children age 5 and under made up 84 percent of those cases, and button and coin batteries specifically accounted for roughly 85 percent of the incidents where the battery type was recorded. Ingestion, not skin contact or another route of exposure, made up 90 percent of the ER visits.
The reason coin batteries are so much more dangerous than other swallowed objects comes down to chemistry. Once lodged in a child’s esophagus, a battery’s electrical current reacts with saliva to create caustic hydroxide, which can burn through soft tissue. Nationwide Children’s researchers found that serious injury can occur in as little as two hours after a battery becomes stuck, a timeline far faster than parents typically associate with a swallowed object, and fast enough that a “wait and see” approach can be the difference between a scare and a life-threatening injury.
What CPSC is telling consumers to do
Anyone who bought the recalled LiCB CR2032 batteries is being told to stop using them immediately and move them somewhere children cannot access, not just out of a drawer but genuinely out of reach, since coin batteries are small enough to be mistaken for candy or a coin by a curious toddler. Consumers should then contact LiCB directly for a full refund; the company has set up a dedicated recall email, [email protected], to process claims. Batteries should be disposed of according to local hazardous waste guidelines rather than thrown in household trash, since lithium batteries pose their own fire risk when crushed or damaged in a garbage truck or landfill.
No injuries have been reported in connection with this specific recall, which makes it a preventive action rather than a response to a documented incident, exactly the kind of recall regulators would rather issue before a child is hurt. Recall #26-484 was manufactured by Guangzhou Lichengbei Battery Technology Co. in China and imported for sale directly to U.S. households through Amazon’s marketplace, without going through a domestic retailer that might otherwise have flagged the missing safety packaging before it reached a customer’s door.
A recall that’s becoming less rare, not more
This isn’t an isolated case. Since Reese’s Law’s child-resistant packaging requirements took effect, the CPSC has issued a steady stream of similar recalls against smaller importers and marketplace sellers, several of them, like LiCB, doing the bulk of their business through Amazon rather than traditional retail. The pattern points to a gap between a clear federal packaging requirement and consistent enforcement against sellers who bring low-cost batteries into the country without building compliant packaging in from the start. For parents, the practical upshot is the same regardless of brand: any loose coin or button battery in the house, whether it’s a spare for a remote, a hearing aid, or a toy, needs child-resistant storage, checked packaging, and a spot completely out of a toddler’s reach, because the safety net designed to catch cases like this one is still catching up to the marketplace.
