Battery recycling school challenge expands nationwide
Stockland, in partnership with The National Theatre for Children, is expanding The Big Battery Rescue school battery recycling challenge to 25 schools and 15,000 students across its masterplanned communities nationally.
Launched by Stockland in 2020, The Big Battery Rescue successfully collected more than 2,000kgs of batteries in its first two years, diverting them from landfill to be recycled.
Stockland’s sustainability strategy includes a target for every residential community to receive at least one education program. Through the partnership with The National Theatre for Children (NTC), The Big Battery Rescue is being brought to life with engaging curriculum-aligned content to educate students about sustainability and drive a community-wide environmental effort.
As part of the national challenge, all participating schools receive a free educational program which includes live-in-school and livestream educational theatre performances of The Energized Guyz by professional actors from The National Theatre for Children. Schools also receive student workbooks (print and online versions), teacher guides, infographic posters, digital games and curriculum-aligned activities on the educational concepts.
There will be rewards for schools and classrooms for collecting used batteries from homes and across their communities and dropping them into battery recycling buckets at their schools. Rewards include a $100 School Reward once participating schools collect 100kg of batteries and an end-of-year party for the leading classroom.
Penny Austin, Sustainability Manager, Stockland said: “As one of Australia’s largest property groups and the largest community creator, we are passionate about building happy, healthy and sustainable communities that thrive, and these types of initiatives help create meaningful change within communities.
“In Australia, each yeari lithium-ion battery (LIB) waste is growing at a rate of over 20 per cent. Only two per cent is recycled. By 2036 LIB waste could exceed 100,000. Working with The National Theatre for Children on this initiative is a terrific way to promote this important grassroots sustainability project,” said Ms Austin.
Tobias Benn, NTC Managing Director, said: “Using theatre and comedy is a great way to educate and cause positive behaviour change.
“The livestream events and live-in-school performances take the content beyond reading and more passive methods of engaging children. We excite, cause an emotional impact and don’t lose their attention because the kids get to respond and interact with the content. The messaging really sticks with them which causes the take-up of positive action and community wide effort around battery recycling,” said Mr Benn.
The challenge runs the whole school year and kicks off at participating schools in Term 1 with a national live theatre tour. More information about the program can be found at www.BigBatteryRescue.com