I read in the Manufacturers’ Monthly that Lighting Council Australia is relaunching Exit Cycle, a recycling program to improve “the recycling rates of emergency and exit lights.”
This looks like some progress as now at least there’s acknowledgement that a problem exists.
The article states that “there are approximately 30 million emergency and exit lights” in Australia and “the majority of the green-emergency lights we see across all buildings are powered by a combination of older battery technologies, which often use cadmium, nickel metal hydride or sealed lead acid”, (“green-emergency lights” – is that a bit of greenwashing?).
I wonder where all those batteries and the e-waste from failed exit signs are going now?
The obvious solution is to get rid of batteries and e-waste forever by using more photoluminescent exit signs and emergency visibility products.
But then there’s the little issue of all that turnover generated by servicing and replacing 30 million fittings ie don’t kill the goose, we want facility managers to keep laying the golden eggs.
