SWANA AND NWRF PARTNER TO ADVANCE NATIONAL BATTERY SAFETY EDUCATION

Collaboration will promote consistent public messaging, modernize battery disposal guidance and expand the “Skip the Bin! Turn Your Batteries In!” campaign.

SWANA and the National Waste & Recycling Foundation (NWRF) announced a new collaboration to advance battery safety education and encourage more consistent public guidance on the proper recovery and disposal of batteries and battery-powered products.

 Through a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding, SWANA and NWRF will work together to expand the national “Skip the Bin! Turn Your Batteries In!” campaign and help municipalities, solid waste agencies and waste and recycling professionals modernize the way they communicate with the public about batteries and proper end-of-life management.

Battery-powered products are now found in every home and workplace, and improperly discarded batteries pose a growing fire risk in collection vehicles, transfer stations, landfills and material recovery facilities. At the same time, the rapidly changing battery marketplace has made it increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish between different battery chemistries or even recognize when everyday products contain batteries.

The collaboration is built around a simple principle: battery safety guidance should be easy for consumers to understand and act on.

“SWANA’s members are on the front lines of managing the consequences when batteries end up where they do not belong,” said Carolyn F. Muller, Acting CEO of  SWANA. “This collaboration gives us an important opportunity to help communities simplify their messaging, reduce consumer confusion, and make safety the priority. By working with NWRF to provide clear, consistent guidance, we can better protect solid waste workers, facilities, first responders, and the communities our members serve.”

A central focus of the collaboration will be encouraging municipalities and solid waste agencies to review longstanding public guidance that tells residents certain batteries, particularly alkaline batteries, can be placed in household trash.

Many lithium-ion and other rechargeable and long-life batteries can resemble traditional alkaline batteries, while rechargeable batteries are increasingly embedded in everyday products. As a result, messaging based primarily on battery chemistry can create confusion and increase the risk that batteries capable of causing fires enter the waste and recycling stream.

Instead, NWRF and SWANA will promote a “Recovery, Not Recycling” approach that encourages consumers to remove batteries from products whenever practical and use designated battery collection, take-back or management programs whenever available. Where recovery options are not available, residents should continue to follow locally approved disposal requirements.

“Consumers should not need to be battery experts to make a safe decision about what to do with a used battery,” said Michael E. Hoffman, president and CEO of NWRF. “For years, people have received different instructions depending on whether a battery is alkaline, lithium-ion, rechargeable, long-life or another chemistry. That approach simply does not reflect the products people have in their homes today. Working with SWANA gives us an opportunity to bring consistent, safety-first guidance to communities across the country: Skip the Bin! Turn Your Batteries In!”

NWRF will continue to lead development of national battery safety education resources and coordinate the “Skip the Bin! Turn Your Batteries In!” campaign, while SWANA will bring its expertise and reach among public-sector solid waste professionals to help municipalities evaluate existing guidance and promote updated best practices 

The partnership reflects a shared commitment to reducing battery-related fires while protecting waste and recycling workers, emergency responders, infrastructure, and communities. To kick-off this new collaboration, NWRF and Woodsy Owl will be on site at RCon® this month in St. Louis to spread the word about the campaign and battery safety!