Run a battery recycling competition

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 

• You may want to run this activity over multiple weeks. You could introduce the activity by having everyone make their own battery recycling boxes
• You could run this activity within your group or link up with other local Scout groups and do a competition between your units. 
• 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.

1. Gather the group and explain to everyone that you are going to be running a battery recycling competition. 
2. Ask the group if anyone knows how batteries are disposed of and why they need to be recycled. If recycled properly, old batteries can be turned into new ones. It also stops them from ending up in landfill and leaking harmful chemicals into the environment. It’s estimated that about 35,000 tons of batteries are improperly disposed of by EU households, which is about 50% of all batteries used. By 2030, the proposed target is to increase the battery recycling rate to a new level of 73 %. To reach or go past this new goal, we need everyone to do their part. 
3. Explain that everyone will be collecting batteries in their collection box. Remind the young people that they should only be collecting batteries that are out of power, they shouldn't be collecting batteries that are still in use. 
4. Ask everyone what they should do to use, handle and dispose of batteries safely. You can find some tips on this page. You could have some different types of batteries, including button batteries, to show the young people and help their understanding.
5. Tell everyone they must never put batteries in your mouth, nose or ears, as this can make you seriously ill. They should always wear gloves while handling badges and avoid touching leaking batteries.  
6. 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.
7. Each week, people should bring in any the batteries they’ve collected. At Scouts, everyone will then keep track of how many batteries they've collected, then they should be recycled properly. 
8. As a group you can decide how long they want to run the competition for and whether there’ll be any prizes. The prize could depend on how many batteries they get, either individually or as a whole group. For example, for 200 batteries, everyone could get a lollipop and for 300 batteries, you could get a chocolate bar. If you’re running a competition with other groups, the group with the most batteries at the end could win. 
9. Each week take the batteries to the recycling point. Always wear gloves while handling batteries and avoid touching leaking batteries. You can find your local battery recycling point. Some charity shops have recycling points and raise money from this.