Clackamas County, Oregon
In a push for increased safety, Clackamas County, Ore. is now taking proactive steps towards battery collection and fire prevention. The county is the most recent in Oregon to embrace this new approach.
At the end of December the new policy, regarding battery recycling, was released. Households are now able to dispose of alkaline, lithium-ion, button, and rechargeable batteries curbside. However, the terminal ends need to be taped, and all batteries must be placed into a 1-quart sealed plastic bag, before being put into a separate glass recycling container. Lead-acid batteries and electric bike batteries are not accepted for curbside recycling at this time.
After witnessing a battery-ignited fire and learning of the sustainability initiatives that had been implemented in Marion County, Clackamas County’s Senior Sustainability Analyst, Rick Winterhalter, felt it was time to make a change.
“It had kind of been in our head and talked about among a lot of us around here,” he stated. Additionally, Washington County began taking batteries curbside, and “it just makes a lot of sense.”
Due to the widespread use of batteries in products, fires have become more common in trucks and Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs). In order to prevent further fire damage, protect workers from harm, and avoid increased insurance rates, many states have prohibited batteries from being thrown into curbside bins. Instead, these items must be taken to designated collection events or other specified collection points.
In contrast to many other states, Oregon has embraced this distinctive solution to the issue of battery disposal. Residents can now conveniently place batteries in curbside bins and be assured that they are being disposed of properly. This initiative has been met with great enthusiasm from the public, and hasn’t increased rates.
An Increasing Trend
In July 2022, Gresham, Ore. initiated a new curbside pick-up service for batteries. Shannon Martin, who serves as the solid waste and sustainability manager for Gresham, noted that putting this plan into action was quite an undertaking, due to having five distinct haulers with different Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs).
“That was step one, to make sure our MRFs could manage them if the drivers delivered them in a specific way,” Martin commented. “And then we just got all in agreement with the haulers. All of them were very supportive of adding batteries to the program to reduce the amount of truck fires we’ve been seeing.”
In the search for a solution, Gresham examined what other counties had done, and concluded that placing batteries in a glass container was the best option.
“Given the bottle bill in Oregon, glass set outs are not that high and so we just felt like that was the natural place to have customers bag and tape the batteries and set them in there, given that they can easily be identified by the drivers,” Martin explained.
At the end of 2021, Thomas Egleston, solid waste and recycling manager for the Solid Waste and Recycling Division of the Health and Human Services Department in Washington County, announced that a curbside battery collection program was being launched. This initiative was largely inspired by similar efforts already taking place in Marion County.
“Marion County has been doing it similarly for years and we were hearing from community members that they wanted more opportunities to recycle at the curb,” he said. “Batteries came up as something that was fairly simple to implement.”
Surprisingly, the two MRFs that have been receiving batteries from the county, Far West Recycling and Pride Recycling, have already collected a total of 13 tons of batteries. Egleston was taken aback by the amount, as he had not expected such a large number.
“We’ve been really impressed,” he stated. “There were some concerns about them going in the glass bin – if the battery bags would get buried in the glass and end up at the glass recycler – but we haven’t seen any of that.”
Across the US, a few cities have implemented a model for battery and cellphone collection. For example, Call2Recycle, a rechargeable battery and cellphone collection program, reports that at least three California locations; San Francisco, Sonoma, and Monterey, have implemented curbside battery collection programs.
A Popular Solution
Winterhalter noted that the people of Clackamas were quite eager for the service to begin. Initially, it was just going to be offered in the county outside city limits, however once word spread on social media, city residents began taking advantage of it as well.
“I see it growing,” he said. “I see people definitely excited about using it.”
Initially, when these programs were first implemented, Egleston and Martins observed a surge in battery disposal, as residents purged years’ worth of accumulated batteries. Since then, things have been running very efficiently for the city, haulers, and MRFs.
“For us, too, it was more of an equity thing,” Martin stated. “Building equity into our program, since getting batteries to a household hazardous waste facility is difficult.”
Since the start of the collection period, a staggering 1,500 pounds of batteries have been dropped into the glass bins for pickup throughout Gresham. Martin revealed this impressive amount had been gathered in just six months.
Originally, individuals were instructed to tape the ends of all batteries before disposing of them. But, processors have since determined that only nickel-cadmium, and lithium-ion batteries should be taped. As a result, a re-education campaign is likely necessary to ensure residents remain informed on proper disposal processes.
Egleston said that Washington County is also experiencing success, commenting that the program was “an easy lift.”
“We didn’t have to raise rates to do it,” he said. “We have a little bit of excess revenue in the system. It does cost a little bit to process and sort them responsibly, but we’re not expecting it to be anything significant in terms of rate impacts.”
Far West Recycling
Vinod Singh, the outreach manager at Far West Recycling, was one of the first to support curbside battery collection. He indicated that ensuring safety was his top priority.
“If we can help divert these items and avoid fires in garbage trucks, recycling trucks, transfer stations and MRFs, that’s a big win,” he said. The startup has been gradual and smooth, without substantial problems, Singh reported.
“We’re trying to overmanage them a little bit to start, we’re touching basically every battery to make sure the right ones are taped and give feedback on the ones that don’t need to be taped,” he stated.
Once haulers have delivered the batteries, the staff at Far West sort and secure them with tape. The sealed batteries are then sent to certified downstream market battery recyclers for disposal.
Pride Disposal Company
For more than 10 years, Kristin Leichner, the president of Pride Disposal Company in Sherwood, Ore., has overseen a battery drop-off depot at her location. This center handles lead-acid batteries as well as other types of batteries too.
In 2022, Pride achieved a notable milestone when they managed to collect 7.5 tons of batteries curbside. The process was complicated at first, as both customers and drivers had to adjust to the new system.
“We do ask our customers to tape the ends of non-alkaline batteries. Not every one comes in taped, but if they don’t we do that taping here at our facility,” Leichner said. “It’s not a high percentage that end up taped,” she’s planning to improve the process by offering more outreach and education.
Before shipping the batteries to Universal Recycling Technologies in Clackamas County, employees of Pride are responsible for organizing and sealing them. This process helps ensure that they can be recycled safely and effectively.
Although there is a cost associated with the processing, it’s not significant, especially compared to the value of this preventative measure, according to Singh and Leichner. Pride examined the figures and determined that there was no need to raise rates for customers. Instead, they simply added an extra container for battery disposal in the trucks already collecting glass.
“We look at it as in theory, we have saved 7.5 tons of disposal costs, so there is some cost savings there as well as the potential cost of losing a truck or a facility to a battery fire,” she said.
Fire Prevention Findings
Anecdotal evidence suggests that curbside pickup may be helping to decrease the number of fires associated with improper battery disposal. Although there is no definitive way to measure such a statistic, those in the industry say they have noticed a positive change.
Over the past five years, multiple truck fires in Washington County have occurred, and “we haven’t had any since the battery program started, but I don’t know if we can credit the battery program with that,” Egleston said.
Leichner noted that due to the increasing number of items containing batteries being thrown away, the frequency of fires has been on the rise. Yet it is difficult to determine the effect that this program has had on the situation.
“I like to think that if we have been able to get 7.5 tons of batteries out of the waste stream we’ve probably prevented at least one fire,” she said.
With curbside programs making battery disposal more accessible to the public, it is likely that more and more states will implement these systems.
