Three businesses in Altadena are participating in a pilot program that will take and recycle your dead household batteries.
The local battery drop-off sites are:
- Altadena Hardware, 849 East Mariposa Street
- Masters Building Supply, 370 East Woodbury Road
- Webster’s Liquor, 2450 Lake Avenue
The Altadena businesses are part of a local government pilot program to make it more convenient for consumers to recycle batteries. The San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOG) received a $395,966 grant from the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) to start a the program, which aims to take batteries out of the waste stream.
Batteries have been banned from California landfills since 2006 because batteries waste valuable metals like zinc and cadmium, and can degrade soil and contaminate groundwater. The Call2Recycle® program pays 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.
Residents can 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.
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. To learn more about extended producer responsibility or California Product Stewardship Council go to www.calpsc.org or contact Heidi Sanborn, CPSC Executive Director at (916) 480-9010. For more information about CalRecycle go to www.calrecycle.ca.gov.
