Battery recycling

It is simple, just drop them off at your closest Transfer Station or at one of the places listed here:

Karamea Resource Recovery Centre and Disposal Facility during opening hours.

• Reefton and Westport transfer stations during opening hours 
• Martins Mitre10 Westport during opening hours

A partnership between the Karamea Waste Management Group (KWMG), Buller District Council, Martins Mitre10 Westport and SmartEnvironmental Ltd enables everyone living in Buller to recycle their batteries responsibly.

Batteries accepted include:

• AA
• AAA
• C batteries
• Square 9V batteries
• Smart phone batteries
• Watch batteries
• Hearing aid batteries
• Coin-shaped batteries.

Note: Rechargeable batteries, lithium and phone batteries need to have the terminals isolated prior to being dropped off.

There are many reasons why you should recycle batteries in a proper way. Disposing of used batteries in landfill is detrimental to our environment and it also wastes useful resources. Batteries need to be properly handled, hence should not be disposed of in landfill.

The battery chemicals soak into the soil and contaminate groundwater and surface water, also lithium batteries can cause landfill fires.

The battery recycling service is offered through Auckland based recycling company Upcycle. Upcycle specialises in recycling e-waste, batteries, metals and decommissioning assets. After the batteries are collected in the battery bucket supplied by Upcycle, they will be transported to Auckland for recycling.

There are lots of good reasons, so be a responsible kiwi, do the right thing and recycle your batteries!