Household battery recycling trial starts up at Lincoln
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
A supermarket in Lincoln township south of Christchurch is taking part in a household battery collection trial, believed to be a first for New Zealand.
In two months 'an incredible' 120 kilograms of batteries have been collected.
'I think some people must have been stashing them in their garage at home wondering what to do with them rather than send toxic material to landfills,' according to Dave Fitzjohn of Lincoln Envirotown Trust.
He enlisted the help of Lincoln New World owner operator Kyle Burnett and support from Maria Wake of the Sustainable Initiative Fund Trust.
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The collection centre acepted alkaline, drycell, zinc, li-ion batteries, button cells, NiCd, NiMH, gel cells, and CR123 camera batteries.
It won't take pouch cells, wet Cells, lithium metal, individual lithium-ion cells, or damaged batteries.
Fitzjohn said the venture wasn't expected to make a profit but he hoped it would become self sustaining and would break-even over the next two years.
He contacted Alan Liefting of Ecotech Services in Christchurch where the batteries are sorted, discharged where necessary, and stored for shipment to specialist recycling plants overseas in places like South Korea.
Ecotech is a technology sales and services company focusing on environmental aspects of electronics, electrical, and computer equipment.
Ecotech repairs, refurbishes, recycles, and resells a electrical, electronics, and computer equipment.
Fitzjohn said as far as his research could tell, there were some battery recyclers but they were mainly for vehicle batteries and were business-to-business ventures not easily found by consumers.
'In France it's not permissible to throw batteries away for landfill disposal and they have a recycling factory.
'It's a huge issue with so many electronic goods needing lithium and alkaline batteries.'
A looming issue for Fitzjohn and his Envirotown Trust colleagues was electric vehicles.
'The batteries are lasting longer but because New Zealand is a small country we don't have economies of scale for widespread recycling. It's the same reason why electric cars cost more here.'
Fitzjohn said the Selwyn District Council and Rata Foundation were helping with administration costs and assessing the success of the trial.