Duarte Businesses Collect Batteries Making Recycling Easier
DUARTE, CA, July 28, 2011 - Two businesses in the City of Duarte are part of 38 establishments in the San Gabriel Valley participating in a pilot program that aims to increase battery recycling within the City and throughout the Valley. The state of California banned batteries from disposal in landfills in 2006 in an effort to recycle more metals and to reduce groundwater contamination caused by the presence of batteries in landfills.
The following locations are participating in Duarte as battery take-back sites:
Frontier Hardware
2137 Huntington Dr.
Route 66 Car Wash
2110 E. Huntington Dr.
Residents can conveniently bring any household batteries (rechargeable or alkaline that weigh less than 11 lbs.) and cell phones to the take-back locations. This means that old lithium-ion cell phone and camera batteries along with traditional AAA-D batteries can be brought to the same convenient take-back location. Signs on store windows identify take-back locations. Customers can turn in their batteries at the marked battery recycling boxes inside the store. Simple instructions on how to safely recycle batteries are located on each take-back box. Full boxes of batteries are mailed to recycling facilities at no charge to the participating businesses.
Thanks to an approximate $396,000 grant from the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOG) has been able to facilitate a pilot-recycling program for household batteries. The SGVCOG is working to make battery recycling more convenient by partnering with local businesses to become battery take-back locations. The Call2Recycle® program is paying for all disposal costs associated with the battery recycling. This take-back process reduces costs to the public because battery producers pay for the shipping and recycling. Furthermore, recycling is more convenient for consumers because local retailers throughout the San Gabriel Valley host collection locations.
For more information about the battery-recycling program or to find a take-back location near you go to www.SGVCOG.org/batteryrecycling or contact Nicholas Conway, SGVCOG Executive Director at (626) 457-1800. For more information about CalRecycle go to www.calrecycle.ca.gov.
