Don’t bin your batteries
Batteries being placed in kerbside bins present a genuine fire risk. It is paramount that they are recycled or disposed of correctly.
The EPA is concerned at the increasing occurrence of fires in the resource recovery and waste sector as a result of vapes, consumer products with embedded batteries, and batteries being placed in roadside recycling or general waste bins.
At the national Environment Ministers’ Meeting in Sydney last week, Environment Ministers agreed to accelerate work towards reforming product stewardship arrangements for all batteries, acknowledging that intervention is needed through the entire lifecycle of a battery or battery-powered device.
This includes looking at options to improve the design, packaging, importation, storage and disposal of batteries. Batteries can be recycled by taking them to a dedicated battery collection site, such as B-cycle.
When batteries are recycled correctly, valuable materials like magnesium and zinc are recovered for use in new products. It also avoids having to mine these materials for new products and keeps toxic heavy metals, like cadmium, mercury and lead, out of landfill.
The EPA is currently undertaking a review of the Environment Protection (Waste to Resources) Policy 2010 (the EPP), with consultation set to open soon. A number of the key policy reform areas of the EPP are seeking to address this.
In the short term, the EPA have also attended a State and Territory Battery Working Group to address the immediate and medium-term risks associated with the incorrect disposal of vapes and other lithium-ion embedded waste.
It’s important that all South Australians dispose of this type of waste correctly through dedicated battery collection sites, and do not place them in kerbside waste or recycling bins.
Check out B-cycle or Which Bin
