Design your own battery recycling box

You’ll need

Cardboard box or shoebox
Card
Paper
Craft Materials
Felt tips
Pencils
Pens
Scissors
Glue

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

This activity involves using shoes boxes, which you could ask people to bring in from home. Remember, not everyone will be able to bring donations from home. This may be due to lots of reasons, such as living situations or cost. You should consider bringing some spare boxes for people to use, such as from a local shoe shop.
Inform parents and carers of the activity and remind them to store the battery box safely out of reach of pets and younger siblings. They must empty it regularly.
You can find your local battery recycling point. Some charity shops have recycling points and raise money from this.

Running this activity

Gather everyone together and explain they’re going to be designing their own battery recycling boxes.
Ask everyone what they might use batteries for. Batteries are used to store chemical energy. Placing a battery in a circuit allows this chemical energy to generate electricity and helps us to power devices, such as mobile phones, TV remotes and even cars. You can recycle them once they’ve stopped working.
Ask everyone why it’s important to recycle batteries instead of throwing them away. Batteries are safe to use for their intended use. However, batteries contain harmful chemicals that can leak as the battery rots, which can pollute the ground and water supplies, unless they’re recycled. Batteries also contain finite resources such as precious metals, so there’s a limited supply of them. Both mining precious metals and making batteries produce toxic waste, which is dangerous to the environment too.
Ask everyone what they should do to use, handle and dispose of batteries safely. You can find some tips on this page. Tell everyone they must never put batteries in your mouth, nose or ears, as this can make you seriously ill. You could have some different types of batteries, including button batteries, to show the young people and help their understanding.
You could demonstrate how to tape the terminal on a lithium battery. This helps to prevent fires, as it reduces the risk of a battery touching metal or other batteries. To tape a terminal battery, you place a piece of masking tape over the positive terminal end.
Ask everyone how we can encourage people to recycle batteries. They could set aside a glass jar or a box that’s just for batteries. Then each time you remove a battery from a gadget, put it in the box ready to take to a recycling point, or to be collected if your local council provides this service.
Now, everyone is going to make their own battery recycle box to help their home recycle batteries.
Everyone should take their shoe box and draw out a small square or rectangle, just bigger than a battery. Using scissors, everyone will need to make a slot in the top of the box, so the batteries can be put into it. Make sure this has adult supervision and help. You’ll need to do this before decorating the box.
People may want to sketch out their design. They should think about what their battery collection box should look like. It could have a theme, or it could be different colours. They may want to draw pictures, write safety messages, such as 'Batteries only’, or use other recycled materials to decorate the box.
Let everyone use craft materials, such as paints, felt tips, card, crayons, stickers and other craft items, to decorate their battery collection box.

Reflection

This activity is all about batteries and recycling. Batteries are small, portable and easy to remove and replace or recharge. But, batteries only store small amounts of energy and, once used, they’re bad for the environment unless they’re recycled. Can anyone remember why’s it important to recycle batteries?

Batteries contain harmful chemicals that can leak as the battery rots, which can pollute the ground and water supplies, unless they are recycled. Batteries also contain finite resources, such as precious metals, so there’s a limited supply of them. Both mining precious metals and making batteries produce toxic waste, which is dangerous to the environment too.

How can we encourage others to recycle batteries or reduce their battery usage? People could use rechargeable batteries wherever possible or plug electrical equipment into the mains electricity. You can also try to buy appliances that use renewable energy, such as a wind-up radio or torch, dynamo bicycle lights or solar powered garden lights.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Glue and solvents: Always supervise young people appropriately when they’re using glue and solvent products. Make sure there’s plenty of ventilation. Be aware of any medical conditions that could be affected by glue or solvent use and make adjustments as needed.
Scissors: Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.
Sharp objects: Teach young people how to use sharp objects safely. Supervise them appropriately throughout. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.

Crafting with younger sections: Be well prepared, with everything ready before you begin. Make sure equipment and materials are age appropriate. Make sure small objects are not put in mouths, ears and noses. Remind young people not to put anything in their mouth and wash hands regularly.