ISU student organizations are becoming more involved with the green movement, this time by recycling batteries and encouraging students to do the same.

Students in Free Enterprise started collaborating with the Interstate All Battery Center in Ames in October 2010 to create awareness about the importance of recycling batteries and the use of rechargeable batteries.

“Last fall, the Interstate All Battery Center came to us to ask us to help them raise awareness for the need to recycle batteries,” said Jennifer Wharton, freshman in pre-business and project manager of the competition.

SIFE discussed different ways to raise awareness for such a cause at their meeting and heard about a competition UNI held through the local elementary school, where students worked to collect 12,876 pounds of batteries.

“There was a competition similar to this one that UNI held at the school, and that competition had a great turnout; they collected a large amount of batteries,” Wharton said. “So in our competition, we are trying to get student organizations to come up with innovative ways to collect batteries creatively.”

SIFE sent out a mass e-mail in late December notifying students of the competition and encouraging them to get their organization to enter. Only the first 10 organizations were accepted. The top three organizations that collect the most batteries will win cash prizes.

“At first we were just going to open it to environmental student organizations, but then we decided that it would be better to open it up to everyone,” Wharton said. “We actually ended up getting responses from a wide variety of student clubs.”

The importance of recycling batteries is a topic that is not well known. Many people aren’t even aware that batteries are recyclable.

Iowa State offers options for recycling rechargeable, lead acid and automotive batteries. This is because they contain hazardous waste and there is an economic value to recycling their components.

“Some batteries are rechargeable,” said Merry Rankin, director of sustainability. “These batteries contain a considerable amount of hazardous materials, which gives keeping them out of the landfill an economic value and a strong recycling market. With that in mind, there are many recycling outlets for rechargeable batteries.”

However, a commonly-used type of battery, alkaline batteries, are unable to be recycled. This is because there are no hazardous materials contained in these batteries.

“It’s just not cost effective,” said Bill Diesslin, assistant director of environmental health and safety. “Pound for pound, it would be 10 to 12 times more expensive to recycle alkaline batteries than some of the most toxic wastes environmental health and safety handles.”

For nearly two decades alkaline batteries have been free of mercury and only have a small amount of metal in them. This means they have no hazardous materials in them, and there is no efficient method for recycling them.

“Non-rechargeable alkaline batteries do not contain materials that are considered hazardous and do not have a readily-available, nor cost-effective recycling option,” Rankin said.

The best thing to do with alkaline batteries is merely to throw them in the trash. In fact, in some ways it is even worse for people to separate alkalines from the rest of their trash. This is because in higher concentrations these batteries can cause problems at landfills.

Iowa State’s environmental health and safety recycling program, has worked to provide a legitimate recycling program on campus.

“Environmental health and safety has done a very thorough job of finding a reliable and responsible recycler to which all of our batteries that are collected for recycling are taken,” Rankin said.

At a time when recycling is so important, it is equally important to know the batteries recycled are being recycled responsibly. There are many businesses that claim to recycle responsibly but fail to do just that.

“There are many recyclers that claim to be responsible, that will take any batteries and will charge very little or offer recycling for free,” Rankin said. “It is very important to be cautious of a recycling option that seems too good to be true, it probably is. It is very important for Iowa State to know that our battery waste is being handled responsibly and not causing a negative impact to the environment and the [environmental health and safety] staff work very hard to ensure that.”

Organizations involved in the competition will be collecting batteries Jan. 31 to Feb. 11.