Celebrate Earth Day by Taking Charge for the Environment

It’s Earth Month! Today and every day, take charge for the planet and recycle your used batteries. Recycling used batteries is a small, easy way all of us can help protect our communities and wildlife.

When Canadians shifted to working and studying from home last year, sales of battery-powered products, including calculators, keyboards, smoke detectors and toys, rose significantly. Many of these batteries have now come to the end of their lives. However, used batteries should not be put in the garbage. When batteries wind up in landfill they have the potential to leak chemicals that can be harmful to the environment. Due to their chemistries and metals, batteries require a specialized recycling process. Batteries cannot be placed in municipal curbside recycling programs because residential recycling facilities are not designed to separate them from household recyclables.

As Staples is committed to doing its part to protect the environment, we continue to partner with Call2Recycle®, Canada’s leading consumer battery collection and recycling program. Convenient battery recycling kiosks are located in each of our stores. Next time you come to shop, drop off your used batteries. When our kiosk is full, Call2Recycle will safely transport the batteries to a specialized recycling facility.

If you’re not ready to drop your batteries off for recycling, protect and safely store them at home. Dead batteries can still hold a residual charge so if they come into contact with another battery or metal object they may spark and cause a fire.

Protect your used batteries by taping the terminals with packing, electrical or duct tape or place each used battery in a clear, sealable plastic bag then store all your old and protected batteries in a non-metal container. After you drop your batteries at one of our in-store kiosks, Call2Recycle will recycle the batteries as well as the clear, plastic bags you stored them in.

Safely recycling your old batteries not only helps protect the environment and safeguards your home, community, and the waste stream from fire hazards, it also allows re-useable materials to be reclaimed to manufacture new products including bicycles, watches, golf clubs and small appliances.

For more information on battery recycling, visit call2recycle.ca.