Battery Recycling

Household Battery Recycling

Consumer and household batteries are predominantly portable batteries, readily available to the public and usually of the following types – dry cell: acid and alkali, NiCad, Li-Ion, NiMH, and button batteries (HgO, AgO and Zinc-Air). There are a number of potential environmental impacts from household batteries. These can be summarised into: contamination in landfill; interference with Alternative Waste Treatment (composting) facilities; and upstream environmental impacts associated with a failure to recycle the constituent materials from batteries.

Traditionally there has been little recycling of batteries in Western Australia. AusZinc, a producer of metal alloys based in Sydney has initiated a pilot program to recycle zinc and alkaline batteries. The cost of recycling will be based upon a gate disposal fee, transport and appropriate containers. The Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council is putting in place the logistics of transporting zinc and alkaline batteries for recycling. The EMRC collects batteries from Schools in their Region through a Dry Cell Battery Collection Program. For more information visit the EMRC Website.

Battery Collection Model Study

As a part of the Strategic Waste Initiatives Scheme the Municipal Waste Advisory Council (MWAC) has carried out an investigation into models for reducing the disposal of household batteries to general garbage and for collecting consumer batteries for specialised disposal and/or recycling. A copy of the report is available here. The accompanying paper, Battery Avoidance Methods, is available here.

Battery Collection/Recycling Survey

An element of this study included research into community perspectives on Battery collection and recycling. In January 2007, MWAC conducted an online survey to assess the attitudes of householders and consumers with respect to the recycling of consumer batteries and to establish preferences for particular modes of separation and collection.

A summary of the survey results is provided below:

• 84 responses were received, in the majority of cases, they were from metropolitan and outer metropolitan areas;
• Over 75% of respondents bought batteries, most of these being; Alkaline, rechargeable, Lithium and Zinc Carbon/Zinc Chloride;
• Almost two thirds of respondents were aware batteries could be recycled but only 20% actually disposed of their batteries separately from normal household waste;
• The vast majority of respondents were interested in disposing of their batteries separately so that they could be recycled; and
• The most respondents were interested in a collection method which would be incorporated into the current kerbside recycling system.