This is Waste Reduction Week. As Canada’s national consumer battery recycling stewardship organization Call2Recycle Canada is celebrating this week by calling on Canadians to stop hoarding dead batteries.  Their Executive Director Joe Zenobio says many Canadians still aren’t sure how to properly dispose of batteries so they squirrel them away instead of taking them to a drop off location where they can be properly recycled and given new life.

In the Flin Flon area the Recycling Center collects batteries for Call2Recylce and when commenting on the program earlier this summer Administrator Deb Odegaard said she was very pleased with how it’s been going.  She said they’d shipped 267 kilograms this year which is 587 pounds and usually they’re sending out a couple of boxes a month so it’s working very well for them.

Batteries contain valuable minerals from metal alloys to plastics so instead of collecting dust in homes they can be responsibly recycled to create in-demand products like golf clubs, silverware and even new batteries.