How you can help get batteries out of bins

South Australians will have their first opportunity to recycle embedded battery products for free at a trial drop-off event being held on the weekend of Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 November, from 9am to 3pm.

The opportunity comes as we celebrate National Recycling Week across Australia from 11-17 November.

Batteries by themselves aren’t usually dangerous, but when they’re placed in kerbside bins and are combined with other materials and crushed, fire risks increase greatly.

There have been more than 10,000 fires and fire events across Australia in the last year related to batteries incorrectly placed in kerbside bins.

This trial event will focus on ‘difficult to recycle’ and ‘hard to access’ embedded batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries. Most of us have many of these kinds of batteries in our house that are no longer working. You can recycle these embedded battery products for free at this trial event.

Read on to learn more about the trial event.

What products will be accepted?

Any product with an embedded battery – that is, a battery not easily removed from a product – can be dropped off for free during the event.

That includes:

• bluetooth speakers and headphones
• electric toothbrushes
• e-scooters, e-bikes and hover boards
• flashing/light up toys – particularly wands or other hard plastic products
• personal care devices (such as shavers and massagers)
• powerpacks and portable charging devices
• remote controlled and ride-on toys
• vacuum cleaners (cordless hand-held and robotic)
• vapes and e-cigarettes
• wearable devices such as smart watches, trackers and medical aids.

When and where will the event take place?

The drop-off event will run from 9 am to 3 pm on Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 November at these 4 sites:

• Adelaide Waste and Recycling Centre
  181 Morphett Road, North Plympton
• Campbelltown Works Depot
  6 Newton Road, Campbelltown
• Heathfield Resource Recovery Centre
  32 Scott Creek Road, Heathfield
• NAWMA Resource Recovery Centre
  Gate 3, Bellchambers Road, Edinburgh North

It’s important to note that these sites won’t be accessible before or after this event to dispose of embedded batteries, so make sure you get there during the opening times of the event.

What products won’t be accepted?

There are a few battery-related items that won’t be accepted at the collection points, including:

• loose handheld AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, 6V and button cell (‘watch’) batteries
• detachable appliance batteries and power tool batteries
• e-waste or household appliances.

This is because South Australians can already easily recycle these types of products at free collection points across the state.

To find out where to take your loose batteries, e-waste and other tricky waste items, visit the Which Bin website.

What will happen with the collected batteries?

Following the event, the collected embedded battery materials will be transported by Cleanaway to the EcoCycle processing facility in Victoria.

At the processing facility, the materials will go through a separation process, where the battery components will be removed from each item. From there, the batteries and non-battery materials will go on to be recycled and turned into new products.

Batteries contain recyclable materials and metals like copper, aluminium, manganese, zinc, lithium, cobalt and steel that have many uses in manufacturing, especially electronics. Recycling these materials avoids the need to mine and refine virgin rare earth materials contributing to a more circular economy.

This trial will inform the future development of pathways for battery recycling in SA.

To learn more about the trial event, visit the Green Industries SA website.