County Hopes for Repeat Performance During Battery Collection Week

Bring out your dead… batteries!

Curbside Battery Collection Week is right around the corner, and the County of Simcoe is hoping for another record year.

The collection week begins November 5th, with crews picking up the dead batteries curbside all week long, on your regular recycling collection day.

“Last year we were the highest municipality in Ontario participating in curbside battery collection,” says Willma Bureau, the County’s Contracts and Collections Supervisor “we collected over 24,000 kg of program batteries, beating out even larger municipalities, so we’re very happy about that.”

Bureau adds that not only did the County set a record, but the program may have helped inform more residents of year-round collection practices. “it’s interesting that the amount of batteries we’ve collected at our hazardous waste facilities, the tonnage of batteries has not declined annually since the inception of the curbside program, it’s actually increased slightly; so we think the batteries that are collected in the curbside program would have probably inappropriately disposed of, or remained indefinitely in residents’ drawers or garages…”

The County of Simcoe and City of Barrie are both participating in this year’s curbside battery collection, while residents should have already received the bag in which to place the batteries. Once you’ve filled the bag, put it beside your recycling bin, not in it, on your regular collection day.

Orillia residents can use a sealed, clear plastic bag (Ziploc). It should be left on top of the paper recycling bin.

The program is for single use batteries only, including type AAA, AA, A, C, D, 9-volt and button batteries commonly used for hearing aids and watches. Rechargeable batteries, cell phone and laptop batteries, car, industrial and battery packs are not accepted in the program but may be taken to any County of Simcoe or City of Barrie household hazardous waste facility for safe, free disposal.