By Melanie Arias, March 24, 2026
The slogan “Skip the Bin! Turn your batteries in!” was plastered along the Engineering Meadow at the Take Back event hosted by the Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory club March 18.
The AVL club partnered with the National Waste and Recycling Foundation to host the Battery Take Back event to educate people on battery disposal safety. Cal Poly Pomona students and faculty were welcome to drop off batteries that needed proper disposal and received information on how to properly dispose of lithium-ion batteries and NWRA’s campaign.
Aspen Knox, a mechanical engineering student and president of AVL, said the event was meant to spread knowledge and awareness of battery fires by lithium-ion and alkaline batteries.
“Usually what happens is that people throw them away in the trash,” Knox said. “When they get picked up by the trucks or just processed at the centers, they get crushed, punctured and whatnot, and they explode and cause fires.”
Knox said these fires are hard to put out due to the amount of energy released.
“The waste and recycling industry has seen a huge number of fires popping up due to lithium-ion batteries being thrown away in the recycling or trash,” said NWRA’s Senior Vice President and Chief of Communications Genevieve O’Sullivan.
At the event’s booth, students helped themselves to candy, wrist bands with the slogan on it, stickers and informative flyers from NWRA, detailing a three-step plan to turn in batteries. The first step is covering and taping the ends of the battery with clear tape. The second is making a plan to dispose of the battery depending on the type, and the thirds is dropping the battery off.
O’Sullivan said through message testing, the NWRA found people didn’t know the dangers of throwing away lithium-ion batteries and thought it was OK to throw them out like alkaline batteries.
The difference between a lithium-ion battery and a regular battery is that lithium-ion batteries are more likely to experience thermal runway, which is a chemical reaction that burns at 2,000 degrees in a millisecond similar to a small explosion, O’Sullivan said.
Through working with the United States Forest Services, NWRA used Woodsy Owl as the campaign’s mascot.
Woodsy Owl is the official mascot of the USFS created in 1971 with the mission of raising awareness on environmental protection.
“He’s a conservation icon,” O’Sullivan said. “And the battery problem is everyone’s problem.”
O’Sullivan and CPP’s AVL club connected in January 2026 during the Consumer Electron Show in Las Vegas.
“A couple of the students touched base with us and then reached out afterward, and we were able to put together this really cool event,” O’Sullivan said.
The NWRA brought its Airstream, a homely, decorated trailer with flower pillows, an open laptop seated on a throw blanket, small lights hung above the sofa area and books and mail placed on the counter, to the Take Back event and set up an interactive activity for participants to identify every device and appliance that runs on batteries in 60 seconds.
O’Sullivan said people didn’t realize how many lithium-ion batteries they carry on them. From a phone to a smartwatch, and even a singing greeting card to AirPods, many everyday items have lithium-ion batteries.
“People don’t realize that’s the case,” O’Sullivan said. “We want people to pay attention.
According to O’Sullivan, a lot of devices use lithium-ion batteries because they last longer than regular batteries but can catch fire if they are crushed, manufactured improperly or during charging.
“We’re going to be setting up a station inside our lab in the engineering building, so we can properly dispose of them,” said electromechanical systems engineering student and lab worker Benjamin Ramirez.
On campus, students can dispose of batteries at AVL located in Building 9, room 101.
Off campus, students can find out where to properly dispose of batteries at batterysafetynow.org, which has the locations of disposable places along with information for each battery. Users just need to type in their zip code to find the closest one.
According to O’Sullivan, while nothing has been confirmed, she and her team would love to come back and work with CPP’s AVL club for another battery awareness event.
Feature image courtesy of Melanie Arias
