Get the buzz on batteries this National Recycling Week

Eurobodalla Council is focusing its energy on helping residents correctly dispose of the humble household battery for National Recycling Week.

The theme for National Recycling Week this year is ‘Recovery – a future beyond the bin’, which urges Australians to reduce virgin resource use, reuse and recycle.

Batteries should never be placed in household bins and can only be recycled through special collection points.

In transport, processing and in landfill, batteries can and have caused fires if they leak, are compacted and/or are inadvertently heated.

Council’s waste education officer Gillian Kearney said batteries contained hazardous residual materials, which must be kept out of landfill to limit exposure to the environment.

“Used batteries can contain a variety of rare and valuable earth elements such as lead, cadmium, nickel, zinc, silver, manganese and even mercury,” she said.

“These elements are non-renewable in nature - throwing them away is such a waste. By recycling the batteries these finite resources can be recovered.”

Free household battery recycling drop-off points are located at the Eurobodalla libraries, at the waste management facilities at Surf Beach, Brou and Moruya, at the Batemans Bay Community Centre and at Council’s administration building in Moruya.

Residents can pick up a free mini battery collection box, provided by the NSW Environment Protection Authority, for storing used batteries at home until they’re ready to be dropped off for recycling at any of the local drop-off points.

Ms Kearney said Eurobodalla’s kerbside recycling efforts helped divert almost 5,000 tonnes per year of material otherwise destined for landfill.

“These items can then be remade into products that would otherwise needed to have been sourced from virgin material,” Ms Kearney said.

“This saves on finite resources including water, minerals and metals, as well as energy.”