School battery recycling program
EMRC has developed a school battery recycling program to capture batteries from the household waste stream, ensuring disposal does not damage our sensitive environment.
Over 60 schools in Perth's Eastern Region belong to EMRC's battery recycling program. Students bring in old household batteries, and EMRC coordinates the collection and recycling of the batteries. The program is offered free of charge to schools located in EMRC's Council areas of Bassendean, Bayswater, Belmont, Kalamunda, Mundaring and Swan. For more information about the program visit www.rgang.org.au.
How does the school battery recycling program work?
The school battery recycling program involves an interschool competition, which has proven to be a strong motivator in encouraging school battery collection.
The competition program may be structured in a way that is suitable for your individual school; however, each new school is given a start up kit. One teacher and class or the school's environmental committee can be nominated as the "Leaders of the Program". They will be in charge of promoting the battery collection service and orgnising collections.
At the begining of each year schools are given prizes and certificates to use as incentives during the year to help keep up the momentum. EMRC's waste education officer is also available for school talks at assembly.
How can my school register?
If you are a primary school in Perth's Eastern Region and are interested in this program, please download and print the registration form provided below and fax back to EMRC's Waste Education Officer on (08) 9277 7598.
For schools which do not fall in Perth's Eastern Region please call your local Council or regional Council to see if a similar program is running.
Let's talk about batteries!
New and existing schools have the opportunity to have an EMRC waste education officer give a brief talk to your school about the battery collection program and its benefits to the environment. Students and teachers will learn more about what happens to their recycled batteries.
How are batteries collected from schools?
Each school must call EMRC on 9424 2222 to confirm their batteries need collecting. If the bag inside your battery bin is 1/2 full contact EMRC to arrange for your batteries to be collected. Our battery collector (Jules) will come to your school to pick up used batteries.
Please note:
- Put smaller batteries such as watch batteries and AAA batteries into a bag or container before placing them into your battery bin.
- Please ensure that your battery bin is placed next to the front door during the collection week to minimise disruption to your class or office area.
- Place mobile phones and their batteries in a separate bag for collection and recycling through the Mobile Muster program .
Mobile Muster - bring in your old mobile phones
We have joined forces with Mobile Muster to offer participating battery collection schools a chance to dispose of old mobile phones. To take advantage of this, please let students and parents know that they can bring in their old mobile phones, batteries included. You may want to advertise this in your next school newsletter or on your school's website.
It's important that the mobile phones and accessories are kept separate from the dry cell batteries as they are sent to different recycling plants for processing. KEEP MOBILE PARTS IN A SEPARATE BAG OR BOX. When your batteries require collection, our battery collector will take the mobile phones as well.
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