Host a recycling event
Bring lithium-ion battery recycling to your community, by hosting an event in partnership with Rotary and Redwood Materials.
Who can host a lithium-ion battery recycling event?
Hosting a recycling event is a great way to educate, engage, and create convenient recycling pathways for consumer lithium-ion batteries and old devices. In order to host an event in your community, as an organization, club, or individual, you must fulfill the following criteria:
- Located in the United States
- Be a member of a Rotary club or partner with a club to host the event
- Obtain written approval from Redwood Materials
Steps to hosting
Step 1
Application & approval
Application
Partnering with Rotary
If you are not already a member or making an application on behalf of your local Rotary club, please contact us, and discuss partnering with a local Rotary Club to host an event.
Apply to host an event
Please complete this application form to request approval from Redwood Materials. We recommend making your application at least 3 months before you plan to host. You can also email them directly at recycle@redwoodmaterials.com with the subject line: Rotary.
Approval
Once Redwood Materials receive your application, they will confirm their availability to support your event on your requested dates. Please wait for written confirmation from Redwood Materials before moving ahead with your event planning.
Step 2
Secure a location
Location
Once you have a confirmed date, you can secure a location to host your recycling event.
Tips on locations
We recommend finding a location that is easily accessible and in close proximity to your community. Most people do not want to travel far to recycle their batteries.
Parking lots at local schools, churches, and community centers, are a great place to start. They are centrally located, may have good lighting, and often have one-way directional entrances and exits.
The location should be large enough to provide a reasonable traffic flow to avoid traffic back-up on the entering street. Your local police department can be helpful in traffic flow mapping. It is a good idea to let them know about the event 2 months prior. They may be able to provide cones to mark the flow of traffic if needed.
Some locations have solar panels covering the parking lot, which helps to protect the volunteers and barrels from sun and rain. If there is no cover, you will need to secure a tent or awning to ensure the volunteers are comfortable, and the collection bins stay dry.
Permission or a permit will be needed from the School District, corporation, or the public space where you decide to host the event. It is advised to get this permission/permit in writing and follow up every two weeks until you receive confirmation.
Step 3
Receive event materials
Receive event materials
After you’ve submitted the application form above, the team will contact you to finalize any logistics, including dates and locations. You’ll also need to watch a safety video. When that’s completed, we’ll send you the event marketing materials.
Marketing Materials and Marketing Campaign Includes:
Here are a few example posters. Click to view.
The downloadable package includes the following:
- Your event announcement on the websites www.lithionrecycle.com, ESRAG
and RM, plus ongoing support for the website - Pre-event survey
- Your customized posters will include a QR code which will take visitors to the
website for frequently asked questions and other important information,
such as where to find lithium-ion batteries in your house and garage. - Prewritten newspaper articles and newspaper/web advertisements
- Short blurb/description of the event which you can utilize in all newsletters
- Power Point presentation used to promote your event
- Project timeline with step-by-step instructions
- Pre-event survey and checklist to be used on the day of the event, which will
help you evaluate your event and plan for future ones. - All marketing materials and the website have been created in collaboration
with and have the approval of Redwood Materials - The logos follow Rotary International branding guidelines
- Social Media outreach program. Social media has proven to be very powerful. See Social Media section
for more details. - Marketing flyers in 3 sizes; letter, poster and sandwich board. You will need
to provide us with your date, time & location in order to customize the
marketing materials. The turnaround time is approximately 2 weeks. - Ideal flyer/poster distribution time is 3-4 weeks before the event. The greater
the community awareness of your event, the greater success you will have.
You can choose between using the flyer or enlarging the ad to serve as your
flyer, or both. The ad has an excellent graphic which illustrates where to find
lithium-ion batteries in homes and garages. - Separate picture of the house showing where to find devices and batteries
Step 4
Logistics & promotion
Logistics
Timeline
4-6 Weeks Prior
- Contact Redwood Materials (RM) and give them 1-3 dates you prefer. RM must confirm, in writing, their availability to support you for your requested date(s), prior to your project moving ahead
- Secure a local location for your event. See below for event site selection tips
- Submit $250 to ESRAG for website and marketing materials
- Start recruiting your volunteers
- Advise your Rotary District, so they can put it into their newsletter, and it will inform
other clubs - Contact other Rotary Clubs in adjacent communities, inquire if they want to participate with their own recycling event on the same date. This is beneficial for you, and more cost effective for RM to drop off and pick up the barrels.
3-4 Weeks Prior
- Start your marketing campaign.
- Confirm your volunteers — 2 to 4 Rotarians and 6+ volunteers
- Contact your local police and inform them about the event (optional).
2-3 Weeks Prior
- Locate Day-of-Event equipment
- Put up posters
- Place announcements in local schools, local event calendars, and on social media
- Place ads in newspapers
- Submit articles to your local newspapers (best to let them know as much in advance as
possible, so they will hold a place for an article) - In thinking about your date, consider holding your event the shortly after a big community event (Farmers Market, Festival, etc.) where you can handout flyers and talk to the local people. (This helps them understand that for each battery recycled, the recovered precious metals go directly into electric car batteries)
Day of event
- Redwood Materials will coordinate with you for the drop-off/pick-up dates and times for the barrels and/or boxes
- Place directional event signage
- Place your Rotary banner out front
- Place traffic cones
- Have at least one person assigned to count the cars and document how they heard about the event
Volunteers
- Rotarians (a must), Interactors, Rotaractors, Girl/Boy Scouts, high school environmental club groups. 8-10 volunteers are recommended: 1-2 at the location entrance, one directing traffic to drop-off point and at least one volunteer per bin to collect, sort and bag products as needed.
- You will likely get items that are not lithium-ion batteries. This is expected and Redwood Materials will recycle them responsibly.
- A document comes in one of the barrels to educate your volunteers. Have volunteers arrive an hour before your event to educate them.
- Have each person sign a release so we can use pictures that include them.
Day-of-event equipment
- Directional signs on sandwich boards to be placed at major intersections pointing in the direction of the event. Place them the morning of your event. You can borrow a sandwich board from another organization and place laminated posters to the sandwich board stating “Li-ion Battery Recycle Event ”.
- A sign at the entrance stating Lithium-ion Battery Recycling Event and your Rotary club logo.
- It is useful to have a sign at the drop off: “Please stay in your vehicle”
- Place your Rotary banner out front or somewhere highly visible. It is a wonderful branding awareness opportunity for your Club.
- Gloves for handling the materials (optional).
- Identifiable clothing for the recycle volunteers: yellow or orange vests, Rotary shirts, bright colored or special t-shirts: make it easy for donors to seek help and know who is working the event.
- Traffic cones to help guide the flow of traffic (local police can sometimes supply them).
- Tent or other protection if inclement weather, will protect the bins and volunteers.
Important details
- The pre-event survey is on the website.
- In thinking about your date, consider holding your event the shortly after a big community event (Farmers Market, Festival, etc.) where you can handout flyers and talk to the local people. (This helps them understand that for each battery recycled, the recovered precious metals go directly into electric car batteries).
- Don’t forget to have at least one volunteer with a clip board to record the number of cars and how they heard about the event.
- Be sure to clean up after the event. Make sure at least one Rotarian is at the event location when the barrels are picked up. Barrels containing recycled items should be bolted and the tamper-proof tags should be attached.
- Provide coffee, water and something to eat for our volunteers.
- A folding table is good to have for coffee, water, food and supplies.
- Bring large bags for trash .
- To budget for the event, obtain prices for printing the posters, handouts, directional signs and for beverages and food for the event.
- Make sure to have someone take photos, especially action shots. Every person must sign a release to use the photos and, if the person photographed is under 18, a parent signature is required.
Promotion
Marketing materials included
Where to promote
- Put up flyers/posters in store fronts, restaurants, services, local businesses, schools, telephone poles etc. Anywhere there is good foot traffic flow for your community. Empty store fronts work too.
- Your Rotary Club’s website, newsletter, and at meetings. We make it very easy for our members to participate by bringing a box to meetings to collect items prior to the event.
- Your district’s website
- Community and school environmental groups
- All Schools: Pre-schools, elementary, middle-school, high schools. The schools have e-newsletters, some schools do have weekly newsletters which physically go home with the children.
- Ask if the school will print a short blurb (a separate paragraph that describes what and why you are holding these events) in their communication to students, faculty, and parents each week for 3 weeks prior to the event. We have created the blurb for you (see marketing material)
- At local events prior to your recycling event. Use a handout and have Rotarians, Rotaractors and Interactors talk about the event with people attending.
- Students may be interested in volunteering for the event. They also do a great job in educating their parents
- Hardware stores
- Churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.
- Real Estate agencies – they send to their clients and past clients, most Realtors® also send out monthly letters
- Chamber of Commerce and Village Associations
- Retirement communities
- Fitness Centers
- Local social media websites including Patch, Next Door, Freecycle, Facebook Events
- Look into posting the event on Eventbrite so that you can track to see if people will sign up that they are coming. Registering for the event is free.
- Event calendars in your area
- Google events
- Craigslist
- Yelp
- Local blogs and community papers
“The largest lithium and cobalt reserves in the western hemisphere sit in America’s junk drawers.”
– JB Straubel, Founder & CEO, Redwood Materials
(co-founder and ex CTO at Tesla).
Take the survey
What do you know about lithium-ion battery recycling?
How to Recycle
Find a Location
Host an Event
About the Project
News
Contact
