With participation in the Region of Peel’s Curbside Battery Collection Program steadily increasing, the Region is quickly becoming one of Canada’s leaders in ensuring the collection, sorting, and recycling of residential household batteries.
By Brett Slawson
Welcome to NAHMMA Corner! The Region of Peel, a regional municipality located in Southern Ontario, actively serves more than 1.4 million residents as well as approximately 163,000 businesses on an annual basis. Comprised of the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, as well as the Town of Caledon, the Region of Peel has provided Policing, Emergency Medical Services, Human Services, Wastewater Management, Waste Management, and numerous other programs to its residents since 1974. Governed by a Regional Chair as well as 24 members of Council, the Region of Peel continuously adapts its programming and services to meet the changing needs of its residents.
Curbside Battery Collection
To provide its residents with comprehensive services, the Region of Peel’s Council approved the implementation of a new waste management program in 2015: Curbside Battery Collection. Crucial to the development, implementation and ongoing optimization of Curbside Battery Collection is a partnership between the Region’s Waste Planning and Waste Management teams—a collaboration that places serving the local community at the forefront of its efforts. Spearheaded by Paula Della Bianca, the Project Manager of Curbside Policies and Programs with the Region of Peel, collection events occur in the Spring and Fall annually. Since the Program launched in the Spring of 2016, it has quickly become successful both in its reception and participation. For residents to participate in the program, each is required to enclose their batteries in a transparent, sealable bag. Once enclosed, residents are asked to place their bag of batteries atop their organics cart provided by the Region of Peel on their regularly scheduled pickup date, as seen in Figure 1.
Images courtesy of the The Region of Peel.
However, not all batteries are accepted by the Curbside Battery Collection Program: only single use and rechargeable batteries under 11-pounds are accepted. Additionally, residents are asked to tape the contacts on their 9-volt batteries prior to disposal to prevent arcing. For residents who are seeking to dispose of sealed lead acid batteries, the Region of Peel accepts wet cell batteries for no charge within its six Community Recycling Centers and their respective Household Hazardous Waste depots.
Once batteries have been collected by the Region’s Curbside Battery Collection contractors, they are delivered to Community Recycling Centers for sorting. At these locations, Operators sort through the collected bags to remove waste, electronics, lead-acid batteries, and other contaminants to ensure their proper disposal or recycling. Having been thoroughly sorted, the batteries are then placed into 200-litre (55 gallon) steel drums and placed on skids for shipment to the Region’s battery recycling vendor. The Curbside Battery Collection Program has been largely successful since its inception in 2016. In fact, from the Spring of 2016 through to the end of 2022, the Program had collected 179.2 tons of batteries from the residents of the Region of Peel. The Program’s most successful year to date was 2021, which saw Curbside Battery Collection receive a staggering 37.3 tons of batteries.
Promoting the Program
Now in its eighth year of operation, the program has received an average of 25.6 tons of batteries per annum: a total that is projected to steadily increase owing to the significant population growth of the Region of Peel. Largely responsible for the success of and participation of residents in Curbside Battery Collection is a well-developed marketing strategy implemented annually to promote the program. First, mobile road signs are placed throughout the Region of Peel to inform residents of upcoming collection dates in both the Spring and Fall of each year. Additionally, advertisements are placed within local newspapers to inform residents of the Program, while instructions are also provided to ensure that each resident can participate in a manner which satisfies the guidelines of the Program. Digital media is perhaps the strongest tool at the disposal of the Region to market the Curbside Battery Collection Program and is used in multiple formats to connect with residents. Operating a wide variety of social media platforms, the Region of Peel creates engaging content to attract residents to the Program while outlining how to participate in an effective manner.
In addition to social media, the Region posts collection periods and instructions specific to the Curbside Battery Collection Program on its website. An additional tool offered by the Region of Peel to encourage Program participation is a free Waste Collection Reminder tool. By entering their e-mail address or phone number, residents can choose to receive reminder notifications in the form of an e-mail, text message, or phone call when collection periods are scheduled to occur within their respective locations in the Region. This tool is an effective measure used to ensure residents participate not only in regular waste collection, but in the special programming offered by the Region of Peel as well.
A Battery Collection Leader
Batteries that are improperly disposed of hold the potential to cause significant damage to equipment, facilities, and the natural environment. If disposed of with regular waste or blue box recycling, batteries can spark fires inside of collection trucks and on sorting lines within municipal facilities. Additionally, the toxic chemicals present within batteries can be absorbed by soil or leach into surface water or groundwater systems. Preventing the exposure of these toxic chemicals to the environment protects the health of local ecosystems while also protecting the drinking water sources which communities both large and small depend upon. Having removed 179.2 tons of batteries from landfill sites since 2015, the Region of Peel has clearly recognized and emphasized the importance of environmental protection while simultaneously serving and educating its residents. With participation in the Region of Peel’s Curbside Battery Collection Program steadily increasing, the Region is quickly becoming one of Canada’s leaders in ensuring the collection, sorting, and recycling of residential household batteries. | WA
Brett Slawson is a Household Hazardous Waste Operator at the Region of Peel. With 10 years of involvement in digital content creation as well as six years of previous employment with an Ontario Environmental Conservation Authority, Brett’s background affords him a wealth of experience and knowledge in his writing. Brett can be reached at (905) 791-7800, ext. 1404, or e-mail [email protected].