1. Battery Recycling and Product Stewardship: Opportunities for The Rural Communities
June 22nd, 2017
Sean Burchill

2. Who is Call2Recycle, Inc.?
Non-profit, public service organization founded in 1994 to deal with emerging state and federal regulation.
Call2Recycle®: First consumer battery product stewardship program in North America..
Voluntary stewardship program approved by governments in North America as a battery compliance scheme.
Collection and recycling program offered at NO COST to consumers, retailers and participants; 100% funded by manufacturers.
Collects both rechargeable batteries (throughout U.S. & Canada) and primary batteries (Canada & Vermont), and for a fee in the rest of the US as of April 1st.
Collected over 130 million pounds of batteries since 1996 from 30,000 publicly-accessible sites. Accessibility of 88% of consumers
The first “Product Stewardship” program in North America.
Who is Call2Recycle?
For those of you not familiar with Call2Recycle, Inc. –
We are a 23 year old non profit stewardship organization set up to 1) provide a compliance solution for companies with battery stewardship obligations and 2) to keep batteries out of landfills and incinerators.
Call2Recycle is funded by 300+ obligated stewards AND has approved stewardship plans in regulated jurisdictions across the U.S. and Canada.
Our program provides a no cost, collection and recycling program for rechargeable batteries to consumers across the U.S. & Canada, as well as primary battery in both Vermont and Canada.
TO date, Call2Recycle has diverted over 130 million pounds of batteries and has approximately 30,000 publicly accessible sites for consumers to recycle batteries. Last year, we recycled a record 14 million lbs. of batteries and cell phones, with renewed emphasis on partnering with municipalities, we grew collections from that sector alone by12% in We also have an accessibility rate of 88% across North America, meaning that 88% of the US and Canadian population is within a ten mile radius of an active Call2Recycle drop off center- retail or local government recycling site serving the public).

3. How the Program Works t
Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH)
Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd)
Nickel Zinc (Ni-Zn)
Small Sealed Lead Acid (SSLA/Pb)
Lithium Ion (Li-Ion)
Alkaline/Lithium Primary (for a fee)
Cellphones
Here are the dry cell consumer batteries collected in the Call2Recycle program. Rechargeable batteries for consumer facing programs are recycled at no cost, and Call2Recycle can work with your community to ship them a pre-paid box for free. Call2Recycle provides educational materials and assistance as well to help with consumer awareness and motivation. Our programs offers solutions to meet your needs for rechargeable batteries only, primary batteries only, or an all-in-one Includes alkaline, lithium metal, and button cell batteries (available at competitive market rates).

4. Legislation: The Start of it ALL!
Mercury-Containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act 1994
Facilitate recycling of nickel-cadmium & small sealed lead-acid rechargeable batteries (Heavy Metals)
Phase out the use of mercury in batteries.
Uniform labeling of rechargeable batteries
The issue was first tackled back in the early 90’s by the US EPA.
The EPA passed the Mercury Containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act
The “Battery Act” as it is commonly referred to accomplished a number of things – including uniform labeling requirements for rechargeable batteries, but the two major accomplishments were that
At the time the only consumer rechargeable batteries were nickel cadmium and small sealed lead acid – this act helped streamline regulations and encouraged the recover of these batteries.
I am not a battery geek, but mercury was added to batteries to reduce a chemical reaction that would cause the battery to swell. That’s great, but these batteries were also being thrown away and mercury was being released into the environment. NOT GOOD!!! Realizing this, the battery industry began phasing the use of mercury out of their products by replacing it with a higher grade zinc. The “Battery Act” made it official, by calling for it to be completly phased out.

5. Laws Requiring Manufacturers/Brand Owners to Fund Collection & Recycling
The Federal “battery act” was a stepping stone which lead to a number of states and provinces passing specific product stewardship regulations focused on batteries.
In the US – the state legislation followed suit and focused on Ni-Cd and SSLA. NY was the most recent state to pass legislation and that is focused on all rechargeable batteries.
In New England, VT and Maine have older laws around Ni-Cd and SSLA geared towards industry and institutions.
CT has a law focused on a disposal ban of rechargeable batteries.

6. Vermont Primary Battery Stewardship
First EPR law in U.S. covering primary batteries - “Producers” FINANCE recycling program for primary batteries.
Minimum of two collection sites per county - participation is VOLUNTARY.
31 Obligated Producers partnering with Call2Recycle, Inc. (90%+)
Call2Recycle, Inc. selected to administer the program by VT DNR
So, Call2Recycle has been collecting and recycling batteries for a long time – the most recent significant game changer we have seen here in the U.S., as Suna mentioned, is in the state of Vermont which was the first state to adopt a stewardship law covering primary batteries –
This law went into effect on January 1, 2016 and requires obligated companies selling single use/primary batteries in Vermont to finance a collection and recycling program for these batteries.
The law does require a minimum of two collection sites per county and participation as a collection site is voluntary
Call2Recycle has the only approved plan with the State of VT – we have 31 companies participating in that plan to comply with the law.
Now, what is really cool is that since we now have a stewardship law for primary batteries, we were able to combine the primary battery recycling program with our existing rechargeable battery program and offer an ALL BATTERY PROGRAM --- we will get into this a little later but this makes battery recycling so easy from a consumer perspective … there is no more guess, is this rechargeable or primary … do I recycle it, throw it away or shove it back on that shelf in the garage and deal with it later. It takes the guess work out of it.
Now, this is a unique situation as they have a law which allows BUT realize this bill would have never become law unless it had local support
A number of folks in VT, including Jen Holliday from Chittenden County SWMD, as well as other members of the solid waste community in VT, did a TON of work here to get this passed. This local support made the difference – and to be frank, the lack thereof is one reason it hasn’t passed in other states. Getting involved in the legislative process is the key …

7. Year One Results - Vermont
2016 Battery Collections (lbs.)
Material Type
2015
2016
Change in Lbs.
Rechargeable Batteries
36,477
51,622
15,145
Primary Batteries
3,350
62,585
59,235
Total Batteries
39,827
114,207
74,380
Successes
Recycling Collections
Partnerships
Outreach / Education
Challenges
Exemptions
Budget Constraints
Recycling Collections
We now have a full years worth of data from the VT program.
AS you can see – we recycled nearly 40,000 pounds of batteries in 2015 and in 2016 that skyrocketed to 114,000 –an increase of 187%! why? Well the biggest increase was in primary batteries from 3,300 to 62,000 which was tremendous … the interesting part here was the increase in rechargeable batteries, which was an increase of 15,000 pounds. We have attributed this to offering an all battery program – its was easier so people recycled more!
Partnerships with VT DNR, the local and regional recycling programs and their drop off center networks, as well as our retail participants, and consumer response to a statewide education campaign, were the reasons for our first year results.

8. Safety is continued priority for battery preparation and shipping
Terminal protection required for all rechargeable chemistries, as well as lithium primary/button cells (individual bagging of batteries or taping of terminal end)
Alkaline/carbon zinc 9V or less do not require terminal protection
Call2Recycle provides DOT compliant shipping (DOT special permit)
Bags provided with boxes; instruction sheet/website/ tech assistance
DDR battery safet shipping and recycling kits
Charge Up Safety New program emphasis via website/communications with our customers
Safe collection and transport of batteries entrusted to our program is a high priority. It always has been a high priority. We are proud of our track record, having recycled millions of lbs. of batteries, including the safe transport of tens of thousands of Call2Recycle boxes, as well as thousands of bulk shipments via LTL trucking, through our program over more than twenty years.
Everyone is familiar with the safety issues surrounding some battery chemistries, especially lithium and lithium ion batteries. Improperly engineered battery packs, especially for low end products (think e-cigarettes, hover boards),
can be a major reason why batteries can be problematic.
Call2Recycle works closely with USDOT to ensure that we provide proper labeling on our boxes and the ability for customers to download the required labeling for lithium ion and SSLA batteries from our BOL wizard on our website. We have a special permit for our boxes for compliant shipping of mixed chemistry batteries, including lithium ion and lithium primary batteries. Call2Recycle provides detailed information on our website on how to terminally protect required battery chemistries. We are giving this additional emphasis in future communications with a new program “Charge Up Safety”, which will provide new communications and new materials to our customers to help ensure that batteries requiring terminal protection (taping of terminals or individually bagging) is followed by all customers.
We also have a program for recycling of damaged/defective and recalled batteries (CPSC)- from a kit for a single DDR lithium ion battery, to pallet or even truckload shipments
We also follow up on the back end. We work with our four sorting centers to provide feedback on customers that are shipping batteries in violation of DOT requirements or other issues that would cause a safety concern. We follow up with our customers proactively to address these concerns. It is incumbent on Call2Recycle to continue these safety efforts, as we want to protect both our own interests as well as those of our customers.

9. Collecting Batteries Outreach & Education Examples
We also work proactively with our customers on consumer education. Being a battery collection vendor is only part of the story. Here are some examples of outreach and education materials
City of Austin held a recycling challenge …
Some examples of posters … one item to consider as well is to promote these efforts around something else … for example, there is a National battery day in mid-February … we promote that day as a day to also do you part for the environment and recycle batteries.
Also, daylight savings time is a great way to promote battery recycling – we used this campaign in VT – people are encouraged to change out their smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector batteries so it is a perfect fit to encourage people to recycle their batteries.

10. Changes to the Call2Recycle® Program
Two major changes
All-Battery Solution
Shift for Non-Consumer facing rechargeable battery sites
What does this mean for municipal/county recycling programs?
Also, you may have heard -- In response to overwhelming demand from our valued customers for more flexible battery recycling options, Call2Recycle has recently launched a new all-battery solution in 2017.
 As part of the new service, we will be
introducing an all-battery recycling program that offers customers flexible recycling options for rechargeable and single-use batteries
Effective April 1st we transitioned our rechargeable battery recycling offering to a fee-based service for some current customers – so sites that are not currently serving as consumer-facing collections sites – a hospital, a sheriffs office, office building – will change to a fee based program. This effects our business, public agency and some retail customers.
Sites serving as public drop off locations for consumer batteries- a municipal recycling or HHW facility and our larger retailers – would remain free for rechargeable battery recycling. There are a few states where nothing changes in order to ensure the long-term viability of our voluntary battery stewardship program.  

11. Why all consumer batteries and why now?
Batteries are a growing part of household waste
Adds to convenience for the consumer (a battery is a battery)
We have been asked to provide an all battery program for years
Markets for single use batteries are developing in the US
Grows rechargeable collections
All battery box eliminates sorting at the public interface
What caused these changes? We have been asked for years to be able to provide an all battery program. Given our experience in recycling single use batteries in Canada for the past five years, and more recently in VT, we felt the time was right to offer this as a new program offering in the US. Markets for recycling single use batteries are also expanding to accommodate this decision. We have a Missouri based company- Energizer- that now markets an Eco-Advance Alkaline battery with recycled content (zinc manganese) from old alkaline batteries. After years of research and considerable investment, they added a line of premium alkaline batteries with 4% PC content, and the ability to ramp that content higher if market conditions warrant. Call2Recycle added new partnerships and additional regional sorting capacity to be able to accommodate the additional volume of batteries reflective of the volume of alkaline and other single use batteries in the consumer marketplace.  

12. Boost Battery Recycling in YOUR Area
Do YOUR part
Promote others doing THEIR part
“Cheap & Cheerful” Marketing
Educate, Educate & Educate some more!
So from our 20 plus years of operating battery recycling programs – what are some ways you can boost battery recycling in your area …
Do your part … product stewardship is more than having the manufacturers pay for recycling … it has to be a partnership with all involved. Set up collection programs at your recycling facility! Do you have satellite drop off locations? Consider collecting batteries there and bringing them back to your central facility to package up and ship out.
Promote others that are doing their part … many retailers participate in call2recycle, remind residents that they can drop batteries off at these locations as well while they are out doing their errands … I am sure the local retailers would love the foot traffic! We have a drop off locator on our web site- type in your zip code. Add this link to your recycling program website.
Cheap and Cheerful marketing – with the budget crunch on, one cheap and easy way to promote your communities recycling efforts, including battery recycling, is through social media. Start a newsletter, make up your own content for twitter or facebook, re-tweet Call2Recycle tweets … its simple easy and effective! Another option – run a collection challenge … challenge your community to recycle 500 lbs of batteries in a month and track progress at the recycling facility.
Like any recycling program, the more your residents know, the more your employees know, the more likely you are to get them to participate! Place signs at the transfer station that you recycle batteries, educate your employees on what batteries you can accept and what happens to the batteries you collect! We have a cool video on our web site that show you what happens to them.
Biggest take away – start talking, let people know!!!

13. Sean Burchill Regional Account Manager, sburchill@call2recycle
Sean Burchill Regional Account Manager, Corporate headquarters: 1000 Parkwood Circle, suite 200 Atlanta, GA
Thank you for the opportunity to update you on our role as a product stewardship organization to assist with the recycling of batteries to help protect the environment. We welcome the opportunity to work with your local government programs to expand battery recycling options for your residents.