Students at Shuswap Middle School set an example others can follow by keeping used batteries out of the landfill with a recycling drive.
Staff and students at the middle school launched a used-battery collection contest, leading to more 1,500 lbs of used batteries being diverted to a battery recycler and kept out of the landfill.
Sydney Griffith, the school’s principal, said students and staff are celebrating the success of the battery drive and recognized that it couldn’t have been done without support from parents.
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Griffith detailed things the students learned while doing the battery drive in a blog post on the school’s website.
Students found out that batteries sent to the landfill decay and rot, leaking chemicals into the ground that pollute soil and water. They also found out about the fire hazard that batteries can pose in garbage trucks and at the landfill.
Another benefit to recycling the SMS students learned was that the valuable materials in batteries can be recycled, including iron, cobalt, nickel and cadmium.
Once all the batteries had been collected the students used the Call2Recycle website to find the nearest recycling collection station and took the batteries to the Salmon Arm landfill site for recycling.
jim.elliot@saobserver.net
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