Busan City Exceeds This Year's Recycling Target for Spent Batteries

Collection and Recycling of 333 Tons of Used Batteries in the City, Exceeding Target by 23 Tons

Achievements Include Recycling Incentives, Citizen Sharing Market, and Battery Exchange Events

Busan City has taken the lead in environmental protection and building a safe society by exceeding this year's recycling target for waste batteries.

Busan City Hall.

As of the end of November this year, Busan City collected and recycled 333 tons of waste batteries within the city, surpassing the target of 310 tons by 23 tons.

Waste batteries are one of the items included in the local government joint evaluation indicator, "Recyclable resource separation collection per resident."

The collection target for waste batteries is calculated based on the registered population in 2023 and the collection volume of basic local governments.

The city explained that this achievement was thanks to actively promoting support for recycling collection incentives in districts and counties, holding citizen sharing markets, and organizing waste battery exchange events (20 waste batteries → 2 new batteries) through neighborhood administrative welfare centers to increase the recycling rate through waste battery collection.

This year, a total of 50 million KRW was provided to districts and counties as recycling collection incentives, and 10 sharing market exchange events were held in Busan City, collecting 42,456 waste batteries and distributing about 2,000 new batteries to citizens.

To encourage the basic local governments that worked hard to exceed this year's waste battery collection target, the city will conduct the "2023 District and County Waste Battery Recycling Performance Comprehensive Evaluation," select six outstanding institutions, and award a total of 5 million KRW in prize money to these institutions.

A comprehensive evaluation was conducted on 16 districts and counties across 9 items in 4 fields, selecting a total of six institutions, including Suyeong-gu (best performance), which excelled in operating focused collection periods and collection and publicity performance. The prize money was sponsored by the Korea Battery Recycling Association.

The city emphasized that since waste batteries are small in volume and if discarded without separation, they can cause fire or explosion accidents during sorting and recycling processes, or if landfilled, harmful heavy metals such as lithium and cadmium corrode underground, causing soil and water pollution. Therefore, citizens are urged to actively participate by separating waste batteries from toys and small home appliances and disposing of them in waste battery collection boxes installed nearby, such as at neighborhood administrative welfare centers, so that waste batteries can be recycled.

Lee Geun-hee, Director of the Environmental Policy Office of the city, said, "This achievement was not only due to the efforts of the city and each district and county but also thanks to the active participation of Busan citizens in separating and collecting waste batteries." He added, "We ask for the active participation of citizens next year to achieve the target again, and our city will continue to promote policies such as citizen sharing markets and waste battery exchange events to protect the environment and build a safe society."