Recycle batteries, mobile phones and light bulbs
An easy and convenient way to recycle your old batteries, mobiles and light bulbs is to drop them off for free recycling at our recycling stations.
Project Status: When you need to do this
Batteries, mobile phones and light bulbs don’t belong in your rubbish or recycling bin.
If you you need to dispose of these items, drop them off at one of our recycling stations instead.
Recycle It Saturday
Drop off old electronics, polystyrene, clothes in great condition, x-ray scans, household gas cylinders and more at Recycle It Saturday, 9am to 3pm on Saturday 20 May at Alexandra Canal Depot.
Please note soft plastics are no longer accepted for recycling across all our services.
What you need to do
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Take your items to one of our recycling stations
Old batteries, mobile phones and light bulbs can be dropped off at one of our recycling stations, located at our customer service centres and libraries listed below.
Customer service centres
- Town Hall Customer Service Centre – look for the recycling container on the first floor, near the Kent Street entrance
- Glebe Customer Service Centre
- Green Square Customer Service Centre
- Kings Cross Customer Service Centre
Libraries
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Prepare what you can and can’t take
What you can bring
- Batteries: small handheld batteries rechargeable and non-rechargeable from any brand, AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, 6V lantern and watch batteries.
- Mobiles: all types of mobile phones – including smartphones – plus their chargers, cables, batteries, headphones and accessories. Keep the battery in the phone.
- Light bulbs: compact fluorescents, halogens, incandescent and LEDs.
What you can’t bring
- Big batteries, like car batteries.
- No large lamps or fluorescent tubes.
Instead, take these items along to a chemical drop-off day near you. Most car workshops, scrap metal dealers and service stations will also accept used car batteries for recycling. Visit Planet Ark’s Recycling to find a location near you.
After you finish
Our contractor MRI E-cycle Solutions collects and recycles the items locally, using state-of-the-art processes and facilities.
In their next life:
- old batteries can come back as brand new ones
- mobile phones can be taken apart and ‘mined’ for gold, silver and palladium
- light bulbs can be broken down and recycled into glass wool insulation and the mercury recovered for other uses.
Why proper disposal is important
If batteries, mobile phones and light bulbs end up in a recycling plant or landfill, they can contaminate recyclable materials, leach toxic chemicals into our soil and possibly even contaminate the groundwater table – the source of our drinking water.
Some also contain valuable resources, like precious metals, that can be used in the production of new materials thus reducing the need for mining raw materials and associated environmental impacts.
