Pilot battery recycling trial

Lighting Council Australia has partnered with the Queensland Government for a recycling trial to divert emergency and exit lighting batteries from landfill.

The pilot recycling program EXITCYCLE, launched yesterday in Brisbane, will run in Queensland for 12 months and is expected to provide valuable information on collection and recycling issues associated with this class of batteries.

“Around five million nickel-cadmium batteries are sent to landfill in Australia each year, which equates to some 90,000 kg of cadmium,” said Lighting Council Australia CEO Bryan Douglas.

“When it comes to heavy metals, most attention is focused on mercury. However, it should be remembered that in most respects, cadmium rivals mercury in its toxicity and potential harm to human health and the environment.”

Emergency and exit lighting is used in a wide range of commercial and industrial buildings, and almost always relies on batteries for backup power.

EXITCYCLE will operate along similar lines to the successful voluntary FluoroCycle program run by the Lighting Council to recycle mercury-containing lamps.

Queensland private and government sector organisations will be approached to become signatories to the scheme.

Commercial signatories will commit to recycling all their end-of-life emergency and exit lighting batteries. Facilitator signatories will meanwhile commit to promoting the scheme to users of these batteries.

Lighting Council Australia hopes the pilot scheme will move to a fully fledged voluntary national recycling program at the end of the trial.