Terms of use

Last verified 2026-09-30

lithium.com.au is a free public-information site about recycling, disposing of and safely handling lithium batteries in Australia. There’s nothing to sign up for and nothing sold here. Using the site means these terms apply. They’re short, and the section that matters most is the first one.

The site is run by Lithium Systems, a registered business name of a sole trader in New South Wales, Australia, ABN 78 235 743 812. “We” and “us” below mean Lithium Systems.

Relying on what you read here

This site is general information, not advice for your particular situation, and it’s no substitute for the instructions of the people who run the schemes it describes.

Read that as four practical rules.

In an emergency, stop reading and call 000. A battery that’s smoking, venting, on fire or has burnt someone isn’t a disposal question. If a child may have swallowed a button battery, the Poisons Information Centre is 13 11 26, and the advice is not to wait for symptoms.

Where a page names an authority or an operator, they’re the source of truth, not us. Almost everything on this site is guidance we’ve gathered, quoted and credited: the NSW EPA, B-cycle, the ACCC, NSW Government electrical safety, and retailers writing about their own collection bins. None of the safety guidance is our own invention. If one of those bodies says something different from what you read here, follow them, and please tell us so we can fix the page.

Check the date, and check the scope. Every page carries a Last verified date and the sources it was checked against. Disposal schemes, retailer policies, trial programs and regulations change, sometimes at short notice, and a page that was right in August may be wrong in November. Where a page says an answer applies to New South Wales, it means it. What happens to a battery above 5 kg is run state by state, and we’ve only checked NSW.

A drop-off point can still say no. We link to the operators’ own locators rather than copying their data, precisely so you get their live answer instead of our stale one. But what any particular site accepts on the day is between you and them. Ring ahead for anything heavy, damaged or unusual.

What we do and don’t promise

We do promise the things we can control. Every regulatory claim, date and figure on this site can be traced to a primary source that’s linked on the page. Pages are re-checked on a cycle and dated. When we’re told something is wrong, we fix it and change the date.

We can’t promise that a scheme hasn’t changed since our last check, that a third party’s information is accurate, that a collection point will be open or willing, or that the site is always available. It’s a small site run by one person, and the honest limits of that are set out on the page about how this content is maintained.

If something here is wrong

Tell us: [email protected]. Corrections are genuinely welcome, a person reads them, and they feed the re-checking cycle rather than sitting in a queue. Point at the page and, if you have one, the source that shows the right answer.

Liability

To the extent the law allows, we’re not liable for loss or damage arising from your use of this site or from acting on information published on it, including where a third party’s information turns out to be wrong or out of date.

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded. The ACCC puts it plainly: the basic rights covered by the consumer guarantees “can’t be taken away by anything a business says or does”. A disclaimer on a website doesn’t change that, and this one doesn’t try to.

Links to other sites

This site links out constantly: to the NSW EPA, to B-cycle’s and Ecobatt’s drop-off locators, to retailers’ own recycling pages, to the ACCC. That’s deliberate. For “where do I take this near me”, the operators run live tools, and sending you to them beats keeping a copy that goes stale.

We don’t control those sites, we’re not responsible for their content or availability, and their own terms and privacy policies apply once you’re there. A link isn’t an endorsement, and where a link is ever a commercial arrangement it will say so. See the next section.

Advertising and affiliate links

There are none on this site today. No advertising, no sponsored content, no paid listings and no affiliate links of any kind.

That may change. This is a commercial site, and advertising, affiliate links or paid listings, whether from a retailer or from a business offering battery collection or recycling services, are a reasonable way for it to cover its costs. If any appear, they’ll be labelled as what they are, near the top of the page carrying them rather than only in the footer, so you know before you read rather than after.

What won’t change is how the guidance is arrived at. Where a battery should go is decided on the sources cited at the foot of each page, and no advertiser, affiliate or business named here gets a say in what’s written about them.

Using our content

The words on this site are © Lithium Systems, except for material quoted from the sources named on each page, which belongs to those bodies and is reproduced so their guidance can be reported and credited accurately.

You’re welcome to quote a reasonable extract with a link back, and you’re welcome to link to any page here without asking. Please don’t republish whole pages, and please don’t present this material as though it were your own or as though it came from an authority. If you want to use something more substantially, for a council newsletter, a workplace induction or a school resource, ask. The answer is usually yes.

Changes to these terms

These terms carry a Last verified date like every other page, and the current version is the one published here. We won’t ask you to accept anything. If something material changes, the date changes with it.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of New South Wales, Australia.