Quinte Waste Management fights against improper battery disposal

By Leah Den Hartogh and Jenna Leslie

BELLEVILLE – If you’ve got used batteries kicking around the house, now’s your chance to get rid of them.

From now until Nov. 18, Quinte Waste Solutions will be accepting used alkaline batteries on regular garbage and recycling collection days.

Belleville residents can put their dead single-use batteries in the designated baggies that were distributed to their mailboxes last week and place them on top of their regular blue bins. The Raw Materials Company will be properly disposing of them.

The program has taken place twice a year for seven years now and shows no signs of slowing down.

Since 2005, the percentage of batteries being recycled in Ontario has gone from 5% to 33%. Keeping these toxic materials out of landfills is crucial to the environment and human health, according to Daniel Orr of Quinte Waste Solutions.

“There are chemicals in batteries that can pose a risk to groundwater, surface water and soil,” says Orr.

This infographic shows what happens to batteries that aren’t recycled.  

Files from James Gaughan.

Not only does properly disposing of these batteries prevent potential contamination, it also cuts down on the need for the mining of new materials.

Raw Materials Company is able to recycle every part of these batteries so that no materials go to waste. What this means is that big companies do not need to mine for new materials, they can simply reuse the materials in recycled batteries.

Any residents who did not receive bags or are looking for more bags can visit their closest municipal office.