Authored by Gareth Richards - Outdoor Prolink
Environmental Issue: Batteries in Landfills
Remote controls, toys, flashlights, smoke detectors-these are just some of the products that require batteries in our daily lives. Over three billion dry cell batteries are sold each year in the United States. Batteries disposed in municipal landfills and trash incinerators can disperse significant amounts of heavy metals and other toxic substances into the air and water so battery waste prevention and recycling strategies are essential.
Environmental Benefit: By not dumping batteries directly into landfills many of the hazardous materials can be isolated, recycled and repurposed thus preventing ground water contamination and conserving vital landfill space.
Other Benefits: By recycling materials - even hard-to-recycle materials - less energy is consumed in the production of the final goods. This not only reduces carbon emissions but limits damage of vital natural resources by reducing the need to extract new raw materials.
Cost and complexities: It is FREE to drop off used batteries at any Batteries Plus store across the nation. See http://www.batteriesplus.com/t-storeloc.aspx for store locations.
Implementation Plan:
- Designate a person to be responsible for collecting your used batteries
- Tape the top and bottom of your batteries with regular sticky tape - this will stop any chance of a spark occurring while being transported if there's any charge remaining in the battery
- Take your batteries to any Batteries Plus location - http://www.batteriesplus.com/t-storeloc.aspx
- Create an area in the office where used batteries can be stored for monthly drop-off
- Create a schedule for delivering materials to the local Batteries Plus location. In many cases, employees will volunteer for this assignment and the task can easily occur on the way home or to lunch.
Local Batteries Plus location:2700 28th Street, Boulder 80301-1222 http://www.batteriesplus.com/store_details/079.aspx