• long running

Free E-Waste, Battery & Printer Cartridge / Stationery Recycling @ Officeworks, Battery Recycling @ ALDI or Woolworths

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Store Battery (Inc. Lithium Ion) Recycling Mobile Phone recycling E-waste (Electronics) recycling Stationery (Printer Consumable, Pens)
Officeworks ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
ALDI ✔️
Woolworths ✔️ ✔️

Recycling at Officeworks – Don’t Bin It, Bring It
With electronic waste (e-waste) growing three times faster than other types of waste, the average Australian generates 23kg of it each per year.

There are some products you can’t put in your recycling bin. That’s why we’re giving our customers’ old technology and stationery new life, with our free, easy and secure Officeworks recycling programs.

So, don’t bin it, bring it back to Officeworks!

Find out what items your local Officeworks store accepts for e-waste recycling, printer cartridge recycling, battery recycling, pen recycling and more.

What items can you recycle at Officeworks?
At Officeworks, we’re proud to be providing customers with recycling facilities for a range of materials they use at home or in the office.

E-waste recycling
Our Bring it Back program helps our customers with their e-waste recycling. Each year we recycle more than 800 tonnes of e-waste, plastics and consumables.

What is e-waste?
What is e-waste? It’s all your elecE-waste is anything in your home office with a cord or a plug, or their related accessories is broken or no longer needed.

We accept most forms of e-waste, including:

• Computers and laptops
• Monitors
• Keyboards
• Printers
• Mice
• Hard drives
• Cables and chargers
• DVDs and CDs
• Computer power supplies
• Printed circuit boards
• Motherboards

Remember to save and delete any personal data or documents from your devices before you bring them in for recycling.

Printer cartridges and ink cartridge recycling
We offer free ink and toner recycling so you can return your empty ink & toner cartridges to any Officeworks store.

Since 2005 we have collected and recycled more than 10 million ink and toner cartridges through our partner Planet Ark.

Mobile phone recycling
You can recycle your old mobile phone and any phone accessories, cables or chargers at any Officeworks store.

If you’re updating to the latest handset, it’s simple to recycle your old one. We’ve partnered with Mobile Muster, Australia’s leading mobile phone recycling program.

Simply bring your old mobile phone, phone batteries or phone accessories in store and place them in the mobile phone recycling station.

Battery recycling
Update Feb 2024: Officeworks no longer accepts batteries for recycling - see press release

Pens and markers recycling
Pens are synonymous with Officeworks – but until recently all those empty pens and markers were sent to landfill.

Not anymore!

We have recently launched pen recycling stations in selected stores and will look to roll the program out nationally over the next year to help reduce plastic waste from pens.

Why is recycling important?
Recycling is important as it helps to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfill. Landfill sites produce harmful chemicals and greenhouse gasses, and recycling seeks to minimise those by taking certain types of waste and repurposing them.

When e-waste, batteries and ink cartridges are disposed of, they start to break down and release toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and arsenic into the environment. These chemicals pollute the air and soil and can even end up in local water sources.

Please help us make bigger things happen for the environment by using our free recycling services for e-waste, batteries, ink cartridges, mobile phones, pens, and markers at your local store.


Aldi Battery Recycling: https://corporate.aldi.com.au/en/corporate-responsibility/en…


How to use the Woolworths Battery & Mobile Phone Recycling Unit
This is a free service and easy to use. Simply drop off your batteries, mobiles phones and accessories into the branded Recycling Unit located at the front of the store. You can place the following items in the Recycling Unit:

All handheld batteries regardless of type or brand, including button batteries, AAA, AA, A, C, D and 9V.
All brands of mobile phones, their batteries, chargers and accessories.
Mobile wireless modems.
Wearable technology such as smartwatches and fitness trackers.

Related Stores

Officeworks
Officeworks
ALDI
ALDI
Woolworths
Woolworths

Comments

  • +8

    got email about batteries recycle from Bunnings as well

  • +8

    Deal? Where?

    • More deals later

    • Just an announcement, It always free. Also most of the councils are operating recycle depot for all of the above items + Oils, Paints, Gas bottles, X-rays, etc..

      • Councils often charge for recycling gas bottles, which need specialist recycling (they can explode).
        Learnt that the hard way being a good samaritan taking an abandoned bottle to the Monash waste transfer station.
        They do recycle used cooking oil though for free.
        Better than pouring a couple litres down the sink after deep frying.

    • +58

      How about occasionally doing the right thing because it’s the right thing than needing to do the right thing for a chocolate like a 7 year old?

    • +5

      Goes both ways for happy ending? I must have been doing it wrong.

    • -1

      I fully support doing the right thing, by making less of an impact on the environment, as well as making a savvy entrepreneur rich. We can do both.

      We can also support wasting less, reusing, recycling, refusing and plenty of bargains.

      Buy less junk, buy less disposable crap from overseas to start making a difference.

    • Sounds like decent plan honestly. Wonder how much a battery is worth

  • +1

    Is someone going to make a deal for IKEA's light globe recycling next? :P

  • +1

    Been looking for somewhere to recycle a 97wh notebook battery

  • +5

    Been hoarding dead batteries since the council drop-off stopped getting emptied, thanks OP

  • +21

    Added a table for better clarity.

    • +2

      thanks that makes it super clear

    • +2

      Merge the Bunnings Snaghouse post from earlier with this one?

    • LUL

    • They live in every suburb

  • Will they take cells like 18650 or are they considered commerical?. I hear that the Li is what the battery recyclers want.

    Got heaps of them, some still with over 2000mAh capacity left. All pulled as part of battery pack rebuilds.

    • Reuse comes before Recycle. Sure there'd be hobbyists after these. Gumtree maybe?

      • +1

        There are. There are a few sellers who, charge, record capacity, store for a month to measure voltage loss and sell as a mixed bag. Got something like $33 for 60 cells, which is like 50c a cell. The amount of time needed to discharge/charge and store, list, pack and post isn't worth it. Which is why I will give them away.

  • I have a few tablets the kids have broken over the years and can't be started but they contain data (photos, etc) that I'd rather is inaccessible. So for now I'm still holding onto them. How are others dealing with similar situations? (I thought of opening up and zapping a few places with hi volts to kill the innards but it seems crude and complicated, and not sure how it affects the "recycleability")

    • +2

      Thumb detector.

      Bunnings sell them.

      • Nice. I've done that in the past. Seems wasteful. Not sure how much can be salvaged after that treatment.

    • +1

      I'm also keen for a solution to this. Ideally one in which I can actually retrieve them photos etc but I've pretty much given up on that.

      • If only the touch screen is broken you can use a wired mouse via otg cable.

      • USB to the computer to access the files

    • A bucket of water can do wonders…

    • 10 seconds in the microwave will do it

    • +1

      Ur neg got revoked.

      Suckers….

      • -3

        Woke society.

        • Yeah. Its crazy

  • This is good.
    I alwasy bring the batteries back to these stores.

  • I'll take as many lithium ion batteries I'm in WA I recycle batteries.

  • +1

    Was coming to say post in forums etc.
    But lot of effort/useful info

    Thx op

  • +3

    Thanks OP. Have several old power supplies and cords that need recycling

  • Can also recycle E-waste, fluorescent light products, breakable polyester foam, cardboard, furniture, etc… at https://www.monash.vic.gov.au/Services/Rubbish-Recycling/Mon…
    The list may not mention all E-waste but if you see at the location the bin has pictures for various e-waste, not just computer stuff.

    • -1

      Sweet comment yo

  • +1

    Where can I recycle led globes?

  • How about we just add Bunnings and local markets/schools/childcares that offer these services and florists/nurseries for nespresso capsules and whip it up into a lovely pinned forum post in a greenie forum

  • +13

    Soft plastic also goes to Woolworths/Coles. It annoys me when people put plastic bags into yellow bins.

    • +6

      The misuse of both the recycling and garbage bins in our unit complex continues to annoy the shit out of me on a weekly basis. People either do not understand how they're supposed to work, or do not care. It's probably a mix of both in reality…

      • We had a couple of airbnbs in our complex and they were the worst offenders - they just didn't know. A couple of times I saw someone messing it up and told them and they fixed it with a smile, but with a revolving door of people it kept happening.

  • -1

    There is often good stuff in these bins.

    If you know basic electronics, many 'dead' lithium batteries can be fixed by opening it up to charge the flat cell manually with a phone charger.

    People who dump their perfectly working old phones because they upgraded.

    Etc

  • +1

    Hopefully will be cleaner for me to dumpster dive than the local council depot!

    • +1

      Officeworks was pretty good - got a replacement screen for my 6S.

  • +1

    I guess is a deal because is telling everyone you can batteries, phones for free! What more other than free that is a bargain!

  • +4

    What are we saving here? The environment!

  • Thanks OP, bought -3!
    Please put in forums

  • Don't forget to at least full format the hard drive of any hardware you're handing in for recycling. Your PC may contain valuable information like saved passwords to your email accounts and various web sites. If in doubt, drill a hole in the drive before handing it in. Yes, that destroys the drive and prevents it being reused, but you want to be sure.

  • Ok to bring in an old car battery to Woollies?

    • Most metal recyclers will give you cash for old car batteries.

      • $5?

  • +1

    Can anyone tell me if any of these places take alkaline batteries that are leaking?

    And if not, what to do with them?

  • How much money is this "deal" saving me again?
    How come so many people downvoted what was essentially the same post but for bunnings a few hours earlier, but then virtually no one for this post?
    Doesn't this just straight up go against the ozbargain rules for what constitutes a deal?

    • I upvoted this but not bunnings because i like OP

    • If you want to get some money back on old equipment, try a trade-in for Kogan Credit.

      https://www.kogan.com/au/trade-in/

      • Good service for free pickup but a few of the prices I looked at were really low & they have to be functional - you would get much more selling on Ebay, for example.

  • +1

    Thanks OP. This is good info to have!

  • +1

    While it's not a deal, I'd appreciate the reminder.

  • At least with this they've compared what batteries can be recycled where but still a forum post..

  • +1

    Woolies Crows Nest Sydney has these also.

  • Who throws out old computers and phones?
    I get if they are broken but it just seems wasteful.

    • I still have my 1tst smart phone from 2011.

    • Who throws out old computers and phones?

      Well, I have an ancient Nokia mobile phone from about 1992. It's big feature was that it could receive and send SMS messages, on a character-based monochrome display.

      It won't work on any network in Australia, and even if it did, nobody would want it when you can buy a much better mobile phone from Coles or Woolies for $50 or less. Telstra Lite 2 is currently on sale for $24 at Coles.

      But I do keep my last mobile phone beside my bed, so I can read OzBargain without flattening the battery of my current phone. It's like a smallish tablet, and it cost me effectively nothing.

  • Where can I get rid of my old/dead Aldi Milk Frothers?

  • +4
    1. Not getting anything, not a deal
    2. Always been free basically anywhere
  • +4

    i took e-waste to officeworks and was told to take it to the local tip…

  • -1

    So in the recycling bin at Officeworks is where your used penis.

  • Just put "free" in front of any initiative and it instantly becomes a deal

  • Don't forget Harvey Norman, as well as Bunnings as per previous posts.

  • Can recycle speakers?

  • A genuine question, Is it privacy safe/protected if I recycle my phones/laptops/HDDs in these places?
    I mean, there is a lot of personal data in my broken C drive, lots of private photos in my phone, etc.
    I have 10+ broken HDDs, 6+ broken smartphones and 3 slow and old laptops sitting in my storage room for this reason.

    • They'll tell you yes, though it depends on the place. In a previous job we'd erase hard drives in a fun machine, but never bothered with phones and tablets and such. If you can remove the battery, toss them in the microwave for a couple seconds

  • Just took a dead laptop battery to OW Maroochydore only too be told by a staff member at the entrance they don't take them. I had to pull up their own website on my phone stating it, and still she refused. Only then checked with someone over the earpiece, and finally conceded, saying that must be very new. If there are any OW reps here, you might want to send this customer experience to your training officers.

    • Is there no box at the front door? I dropped a laptop battery in the box at the front door, it was labeled "laptop"

      • There is; I made the "mistake" of asking staff whether I should drop it in the batteries or the laptops slot, as neither listed it. At the end, she ended up telling me to drop it in the batteries slot, but on reflection I think you got it right, dropping it in the laptops slot.

        • If I recall it wouldn't fit in the batteries slot

          • @reactor-au: The store I went to (Maroochydore) all slots were the same size (plus I had the laptop batteries separated from the laptop chassis).

  • Update: No batteries of any kind are accepted for recycling at Officeworks any longer. Cessation commenced in February (press release). Current accepted items are listed on https://www.officeworks.com.au/information/about-us/peoplean…

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