We use and dispose of many batteries, and some can cause three to five fires per month at the Larimer County Solid Waste Facility.

It doesn’t take much for powerful, used batteries --- especially lithium batteries, which are common in many devices today --- to catch fire. Used batteries that are no longer useful can still release enough energy as heat to start a fire. Larimer County Solid Waste is creating a battery design safety sticker to remind our community to be careful when recycling batteries.

Members of our community are invited to participate in a battery recycling contest and submit their designs for our 2025 Battery Safety sticker. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 28, 2025.

Learn more about the battery design contest details here. To submit your design, go here.

The winner of the sticker design contest will have their design printed on the sticker which will be distributed to Larimer County Solid Waste customers throughout 2025. The winning design might also be promoted in other promotional flyers or posters.

Although one winning design will be chosen, the top three winning designers will also receive gift cards to program sponsors and establishments that participate in battery safety.

Battery safety is intended to continue to bring community awareness of hazardous materials and enhance the safety of the landfill and solid waste staff by keeping batteries from standard recycling materials. County Battery Safety can be found by clicking https://www.larimer.gov/solidwaste/batteries.

Also, with spring and spring cleaning just around the corner, many in our community might be cleaning and considering the disposal of items that could be hazardous. More information on Hazardous Waste can be found by clicking https://www.larimer.gov/solidwaste/haz.