Lighting & Electrical

Ecocycle supports industry-led battery recycling program Exitcycle

Australia’s commercial and public buildings are home to about 30 million emergency exit lights. Most of these rely on nickel cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries, along with smaller numbers of nickel metal hydride and sealed lead acid batteries. An estimated five million Ni-Cd batteries, containing 90 tonnes of the toxic heavy metal cadmium, are dumped in landfill every year. To address this problem the Lighting Council of Australia, with the support of the Queensland government, has relaunched it…

Where can I recycle lighting in Australia?

Most people don’t know it, but it is both possible and desirable to recycle lighting waste in Australia. Much of our lighting – fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and some types of high intensity lamps – contains mercury. If these lights are not recycled, that mercury ends up polluting our environment. Aside from the toxic material in some lamps, all lighting contains glass and metals – highly recyclable materials that should be used to produce new items rather than bei…

What can national and public parks recycle?

Whether it’s a huge national park or a small local reserve, parks and gardens improve our wellbeing and play an important role in creating a healthy environment. While municipal parks may provide rubbish and recycling bins for use by the public, to stay neat and tidy more remote parks will often rely on visitors to take their rubbish home. But management and maintenance of parks also generates a wide range of wastes, and to remain faithful to the cause of being good for the environment, it…

Are your Christmas lights broken? Here’s how you can recycle them

Australia may not be in the same league as America when it comes to Christmas light displays. However, as more people get into the festive lighting spirit one thing is certain – more Christmas lighting adds up to more electrical and electronic waste (e-waste). No one wants to be the Grinch so decorate away, but when your Christmas lights become old and broken please do the right thing and make sure they are safely recycled. One distinguishing feature of Christmas lighting is its sheer d…

How does Ecocycle collect, transport, store and recycle lighting?

Ecocycle provides complete lighting recycling solutions for organisations of all sizes. Because we control the entire process from start to finish, you can rest assured that your waste lighting will be recycled responsibly, safely and in compliance with all applicable regulations. Here’s how we collect, transport, store and recycle lighting: Collection Our involvement begins right at the point where lighting becomes waste – at your premises. We supply collection containers matched to you…

What types of lighting can schools recycle?

Schools do a great job of encouraging and implementing recycling programs. But have you ever wanted to know what types of lighting schools can recycle? The short answer is: all types of lighting can be recycled by schools. Now let’s delve into the details. Fluorescent lighting Fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) make up most of the lighting used in most schools. They also represent the main environmental hazard due to the mercury they contain. As long as fluoresc…

What Are Councils Doing To Recycle Lighting?

Recently we looked at the level of support given by local councils to battery recycling and found a mixed result. Some councils provided battery collection services through their offices and depots, others actually recommended tossing them into a normal rubbish bin. So, how about lighting recycling? Fluorescent lighting waste is top of our list of things local councils should be recycling, so what advice and services are councils providing to residents and businesses when it comes to fl…

Call For NT Government To Take The Lead On Lighting And E-Waste

Ecocycle and Rusca Environmental Solutions are delighted to announce that they have entered into a formal agreement that will boost hazardous waste recycling in the Northern Territory. Ecocycle is Australia’s only fully licensed recycler of mercury-containing waste, and a major recycler of lighting, battery and other types of electronic waste. Rusca Environmental Solutions is a division of the Rusca Group, an Aboriginal-owned company with more than 40 years’ experience in delivering civil …

3 Household Products We’d Love To See Tackled On ABC’s War On Waste

Across three chilling episodes of the ABC series War On Waste, Craig Reucassel lifted the lid on several of Australia’s dirty little secrets. Sorry, make that dirty BIG secrets, because the amount of stuff we throw away every day is nothing less than shocking. War On Waste focused on high volume wastes including food, clothing, disposal coffee cups and plastics, particularly the all-pervasive plastic bag. But among the astounding statistics (Australians throw away $8 billion worth of ed…

How your workplace can run its own e-waste recycling scheme

These days you’d be hard pressed to find a business that doesn’t rely on computers, printers and mobile phones. And like any electronic items these either break down or become technologically obsolete, adding to Australia’s (and the world’s) growing mountain of electronic waste. E-waste contains toxic materials, such as lead and mercury, as well as valuable components including gold and steel. The upshot is that recycling e-waste makes sense for both environmental and economic reasons, …

How Australian businesses can dispose of and recycle light bulbs

Around Australia the main method of dealing with lighting waste is to dump it in a hole in the ground, cover it over and forget about it. That’s despite the fact that the majority of lighting waste being dumped in landfills contains the toxic metal mercury. Over time, mercury can leach from landfill into waterways, then into the ocean before ending up in the fish we eat. Change, however, is coming. South Australia is leading the way, and banned the disposal of fluorescent lighting an…

How to properly dispose of different light bulbs: incandescent, CFL/fluorescent, halogen, LED

How you can best dispose of lighting waste depends on two things: a) the type of lighting and b) the amount of lighting waste you or your organisation needs to dispose of. Let’s start with what to do with smaller (household or small business) quantities of lighting waste. How to dispose of incandescent light bulbs These old-style light globes can safely be disposed of in your normal rubbish. For safety, wrap in newspaper or other packaging material before putting old incandescent light g…

LED lighting market to grow rapidly by 2023

The LED lighting market is set to rapidly expand, indicating a shift away from incandescent and fluorescent lighting. According to P&S Market Research, the global LED lighting market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.6% between 2017 and 2023. That will see this sector of the lighting market valued at US$70.2 billion (A$95 billion) in five years’ time. This indicates a huge switch from incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Not surprisingly, this trend is lar…

Ecocycle provides certificates for lighting recycling

It’s reasonable to expect that materials sent for recycling will, in fact, be recycled. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, with some waste types being illegally exported or ending up in landfill. To assure clients that their waste is recycled, Ecocycle provides recycling certificates on request. These certificates meet a number of needs: They provide evidence of compliance with internal corporate recycling targets For companies fulfilling tender requirements for lighting…

Where to take batteries, globes and e-waste for recycling

Wouldn’t it be great if recycling batteries, lighting waste and electronic waste (e-waste) was as easy as recycling our plastic bottles and newspapers? Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case but with just a little extra effort it is possible to make sure all these types of waste, and the nasty things they contain, are responsibly recycled. Here’s where you can take batteries, globes and e-waste for recycling: Batteries All batteries contain useful materials that can be recycled, often …

5 things a tradie might not know they can recycle

Whether you’re a sparky or a chippy, a dunny diver or a bricky, a lot of the waste that’s generated by the work you do can be recycled. In fact, over 90% of the waste generated on home construction sites can be recycled or diverted to other uses. It’s a similar story for demolition sites, and for the waste that’s created during a building’s lifetime. So before you bin anything, take a moment to find out if it can be recycled. Here are a few things that can be recycled that you might …

How your workplace can run its own lighting recycling scheme

Want to buff up your environmental credentials by starting a lighting recycling program in your workplace? It’s easy! In fact, it takes just four simple steps to get up and running and protecting the environment. But why recycle lighting? The big issue is that fluorescent lighting has a dark side. It contains toxic mercury, a pollutant that contaminates the environment and even ends up in the fish on our dinner plates. Recycling prevents that pollution and recovers mercury for safe r…

Why big businesses should care if their electrical contractors recycle

Imagine you’re a facilities manager for a large company. It’s time to replace all the light globes in one of your major warehouses. So you get a couple of electrical contractors to give you a quote. Both offer similar quality lighting products, quick service to minimise business disruption, and clean-up and removal of all waste. There are just two differences between them: Contractor A will charge a bit more than Contractor B; and Contractor A will provide a certificate of recycling t…

Ecocycle joins Exitcycle and Lighting Council Australia in panel discussion

Ecocycle Business Development Manager, Mr Daryl Moyle, recently presented to the battery recycling industry at a Lighting Council of Australia (LCA) hosted panel discussion. The focus of the discussion was on how to lift the rate of battery recycling under the LCA’s industry-led battery recycling program Exitcycle. The initiative aims to increase the recycling rate of batteries from emergency lighting in commercial buildings. Currently, less than 10 per cent of batteries removed from th…

What can cinemas recycle?

Think of ‘cinemas’ and ‘recycling’ and the obvious things that come to mind are popcorn buckets and soft drink bottles. Coffee cups and choc-top wrappers also make up a large proportion of the waste generated by cinemas. But beyond these day-in-day-out waste streams there are other, more durable items that cinema managers should be recycling at the end of their working lives. This is about more than just reducing the volume of waste going to landfill. It’s a vital part of efforts to keep toxic m…

What can retailers recycle?

It’s hard to imagine any kind of civilisation without retailing. It’s a foundation of our economy, employing well over a million Australians, and provides every one of us with the necessities and desires of life. One result of all this activity is the generation of large quantities of waste comprising everything from plastic wrap to cardboard cartons, food waste and disposable takeaway containers, lighting, old point-of-sale machines, shop fittings and much more. Small retailers may nee…

How FluoroCycle and Ecocycle are recycling mercury lights in Australia

Mercury that accumulates in landfill can be extremely damaging – it converts to toxic methylmercury and extends to the wider environment through air, water and soil. And one of the biggest culprits of contributing mercury to landfill is fluorescent lighting. Even though the mercury within a single fluorescent tube is minimal and unlikely to cause mercury poisoning, it’s the accumulation of these tubes in landfill that is most damaging. About 90-95% of mercury-containing lighting waste i…

How EXITCYCLE and Ecocycle are recycling batteries from building exit signs

Illuminated exit signs are a critical safety feature of most commercial buildings. If the power goes out or in an emergency, the light from these signs may truly be a lifesaver. However, emergency and exit lighting does have a dark side. About 90% of the batteries that power these lights are nickel cadmium (Ni-Cd), meaning they are amongst the most hazardous of all batteries. Cadmium is the big problem. An estimated five million Ni-Cd batteries containing about 90 tonnes of this toxic h…

Indian board directed to dispose of compact fluorescent lamps responsibly

An Indian NGO, Toxic Links, has had success in its efforts to tackle mercury pollution from lighting waste. Presenting a case to the National Green Tribunal (NGT), Toxic Links contended that current treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) were not adequately equipped to deal with compact fluorescent lamps and other mercury bearing lighting. The result is that the NGT has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB ) to consider the upgrade of TSDFs. The CPCB must take …

How to convince your boss to get on board with workplace recycling

Many people think that the sole purpose of a business is to make money for its owners, and that anything that gets in the way of this goal, such as spending money on non-compulsory workplace recycling efforts, should be ignored. If that sounds like the attitude of your boss, here are some tips on how to convince them that recycling at work is actually good for business. 1. Appeal to their better nature Yes, bosses are human too, with concerns for their future and for their children and gran…

What can Australian warehouses and factories recycle?

Industrial equipment A range of industrial equipment from transformers through to thermostats can potentially contain mercury, and therefore need to be disposed of safely. Depending on the size and nature of the equipment, specialist help may be required to assess the risks and to design effective solutions. Batteries Batteries, including tiny button cells and batteries bigger than shipping containers, are playing an increasingly important role in today’s energy mix. Battery recycling not onl…

Save Our Bacteria – Recycle Your Batteries

As we move from the fossil fuel age into the battery-electric age we don’t want to swap one set of environmental problems for another. It’s therefore important that any risks posed by the new materials that will underpin a clean energy economy are identified and addressed. A new finding from the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota illustrates what one of those risks may be. Professor Robert J. Hamers and his team discovered that a key component of lithium ion batteries spells trouble for …

The Most Common Batteries You Can Recycle

Q. How many handheld batteries do Australians buy each year A. Over 400 million! Q. What happens to them when they no longer work? A. Most get dumped in landfill. Australia’s overall hand held battery recycling rate is less than 3%. For our most commonly used batteries, the recycling rate is around 2%. Q. What types of batteries are most commonly recycled? A. By number and by battery size, AA batteries the most commonly recycled battery. Next come AAA batteries then button cells (…

Where Can I Recycle Batteries In Australia?

Each year in Australia millions of batteries reach the end of their working life. Sadly, just 3% of handheld batteries (those weighting less than 5kg) are recycled. The rest, including many that contain toxic components, get dumped into landfill. It’s a sad state of affairs because not only is it possible to recycle batteries, with hundreds of battery collection points around Australia, it’s also simple and convenient. So what are the options for battery recycling in Australia? Small Batteri…

Lighting containing mercury to be recycled under NSW Energy Savings Scheme

Electrical contractors involved in commercial lighting upgrades under the New South Wales Energy Savings Scheme (ESS) need to know about a recent change to its rules. As of 15 May 2016, all lighting equipment containing mercury that is replaced as part of this program must be recycled. The ESS Rule amendments fact sheet can be downloaded here. It stipulates that mercury-containing lighting “must be recycled in accordance with the recycling requirements of a product stewardship scheme such …

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