Allison interviews Genevieve O’Sullivan from the National Waste & Recycling Foundation (NWRF) about their new campaign, which encourages consumers to dispose of batteries safely.
Woodsy Owl, credited for promoting the slogan, “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute!” in the 1970s, has returned from a hiatus to help promote this campaign for the National Waste & Recycling Foundation. He’s back with a new slogan to remind us all about safe battery disposal, “Skip the Bin – Turn Them In!”
The NWRF’s goal is to inform people of the dangers of throwing batteries in the trash or recycling bin. Today’s batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries, present several risks when not disposed of properly. They can overheat or get crushed, leading to extremely hot fires that are difficult to extinguish. This can put people in the home, on trash/recycling trucks, and in waste facilities at serious risk of injury, or even death, and can lead to significant property damage.
The best way to dispose of batteries is to find a battery recycling center near your location using this link https://locator.batterynetwork.org/ and drop off your used batteries there.
Learn more at NWRF Battery Safety Campaign
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Transcript of Interview
Allison: Well, do you all remember Woodsy Owl, give a hoot, don’t pollute? I am standing with the actual Woodsy Owl who has been in seclusion, a mysterious location since what, 1990, I believe you said.
Genevieve: Early 90s, yeah, he’s back.
Allison: And luckily he has a spokesperson here, Genevieve O’Sullivan from the National Waste Recycling Foundation, and she’s going to tell us why Woodsy’s here now, why he decided he had to come out of hibernation.
Genevieve: So, Woodsy’s, Woodsy is actually our spokes owl. He is helping us kick off a national PSA campaign that actually kicks off here at CES, and it’s all around skipping the bin and turning your batteries in. So what we have is we’ve got all the challenges of people not understanding that batteries cause fires, and they’re throwing them in their recycling and their garbage, and we see all sorts of dangerous situations where trucks catch on fire, recycling centers burn down, and what we’re trying to do with waste and recycling is really just get the word out to consumers. There are, there are ways to return your batteries.
Allison: So we are talking about your triple A’s, we’re talking about your battery in a cell phone or lithium, lithium ion batteries, all batteries, you say.
Genevieve: All batteries, yes. But lithium ion are definitely the most dangerous, but the others still have juice and they can still spark a fire. And if they’re, think about recycling, how much paper’s in it, it doesn’t matter what it is, it’ll start a fire.
Allison: Sure, sure. So, uh, what, what are the ways that people can, uh, recycle their batteries?
Genevieve: So this is the coolest part. Woodsy has his own website, it’s batterysafetynow.org. And if you go there, you’re going to find this neat little thing and it says, where can I turn in my batteries? And you click it, and you can basically go in, put in your zip code and find all sorts of batteries and where they can be, uh, returned safely so that they can be disposed of properly.
Allison: Oh, that’s fantastic. We have a, a waste, a e-waste recycling place, but we, we stack up a lot of stuff because it’s so inconvenient, but maybe with your website I could go find a closer place for the batteries, which are most of it to be honest.
Genevieve: Yeah, and I think the other cool part is, is part of this PSA campaign is onsite events across the US. So we are going to be working with a lot of our members who are your, your recyclers and your garbage haulers to put on take back events. We already started in some test markets and they’ve been hugely successful. Thousands of batteries, thousands of pounds of batteries have actually already been returned, and we’re looking at like some big numbers for this next year. We’re very excited.
Allison: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, we are big fans of the Forest Service. So, uh, really appreciate the work that you do in general, but, uh, this sounds like a really worthy campaign. So let’s hear the slogan one more time.
Genevieve: Skip the bin, turn your batteries in.
Allison: All right, you heard it here.