The District 5030 Environmental Sustainability Committee is launching a very ambitious Rotary campaign to recycle lithium ion batteries throughout our District. These are batteries that come in cell phones, laptops, tablets, power drills, e-bikes, electric vehicles and anything that is rechargeable. Lithium-ion batteries are a phenomenal technology that can propel us into a clean energy and transportation future. All lithium-ion batteries are made up of varying amounts of critical minerals like cobalt, nickel, copper and lithium. What is incredible is these minerals can be recycled almost infinitely.
Yet, today, only 17 percent of e-waste and less than 5 percent of lithium-ion battery containing devices get recycled. The overwhelming majority of these devices end up in landfills. Recycling creates a tremendous opportunity to “urban mine” old products and build new, sustainable product while offsetting our need to terrestrially mine. Old devices can become new ones without any tradeoffs to performance or battery life. And lithium-ion battery demand is projected to increase by 500% in the coming years.
Last year District 5030 launched the first lithium battery recycling campaign in the world and we plan to build on their success. It is critical that these lithium batteries are not carelessly dumped in your garbage as they can present a serious fire hazard. They NEED to be properly and safely recycled.
This year RD 5030 ESC has established a Rotary Task Force to expand on last year’s efforts and intends to broaden the geographical reach and create a major media blitz to engage the general public. We have 11 Rotary Clubs represented plus one Rotaract Club to provide excellent geographical diversity. These are the Rotarians and their Clubs:
- Bellevue Maria Claudia Norena
- Woodinville Erv DeSmet
- Environmental Rotary Club of Puget Sound Janiece Hoggatt and Kimberly Peterson
- Lake Forest Park Linda Holman
- Seattle 4 Cathy Gibson PDG
- Ballard Jorge Restrepo
- Edmonds Rob Linder
- Renton Lori Church
- Enumclaw Nancy Merrill
- Emerald City Phil Thompson
- Seattle University Rotaractors Nikki Bashaw, Audrey Griffitts and Niko Van Stipdonk
- University District Sally Porter Smith and Dave Spicer
- Redwood Materials, our key partner, and Sonja Koch
- Our Task Force has established a key date commensurate with Earth Day and scheduled the recycling drop off date for Saturday, April 20, 2024 from 10 am to 3 pm at several locations.
District Governor Kaj has strongly endorsed this major undertaking. We will again be collaborating with Redwood Materials which is the first U.S.-based battery recycling plant to host collection drives, yielding tens of thousands of pounds of cell phones, laptops, power drills and other rechargeable electronics. They will help us with logistics at each site. They have worked with over 70 other Rotary Clubs throughout the USA and RD 5030 is the first Rotary District involved.
The current drop off sites for April 20 are being finalized. The sites that are confirmed include:
- Bellevue Downtown Park
- Bellevue QFC
- Lake Forest Park Town Mall
- QFC UVillage
- Ballard Fred Meyer
- Goodwill on Dearborn in south Seattle
- St Joseph’s Church/School (not available April 20 but over month of April)
- West Seattle
- Covington
- Enumclaw Recyclers/Use Again Store in Enumclaw
- Week’s Funeral Homes in Enumclaw
- Goodwill Burien
- Goodwill Tukwila/Renton
We call on all Rotarians from every club in our District to get the word out, reach out to their networks and build huge momentum for this event on April 20. This will also be an opportunity to showcase Rotary and feature Rotary prominently at all sites. We are planning strategies to recruit mainstream media—print, TV and radio – along with social media to get visibility for this event and also Rotary. And hopefully get the media out to the pickup sites.
Please see the website that has been designed for this Rotary District 5030 Recycling Campaign which has more information and identifies the drop off sites for April 20. https://rotary.my.canva.site/2024-rotary-lithium-ion-battery-recycling
If you are interested in being involved with this very dynamic campaign, please contact Dave Spicer at dspicer@davespicerlaw.com.
