Matua Primary School's battery recycling project found the lofty ears of Tauranga City Council today when a delegation from Room 10 addressed councillors about their battery disposal project.

Matua Primary School pupils Flora, Emily, Caitlin and Daniel teach the councillors about battery recycling.

The class at Room 10 have been investigating what happens to batteries once they are used and go in the rubbish.

Councillors were so impressed with the performance that Mayor Stuart Crosby said he would investigate what happens to the council's old batteries

'I'm sure we could get more than one and a half bins, knowing the amount of technology we have,” says Stuart.

Councillor Terry Molloy was also impressed with the children's delivery saying he had a couple of old batteries at home that he will now make sure go to the right place.

The children found batteries that go into the rubbish bin end up in landfills where their acidic contents leak into the land, which can erode the plastic landfill lining and contaminate the soil.

Children are instead urging people to take their batteries to a recycling centre.

Pupil's found on average 66 batteries were found per household, about 1700 batteries per class or 32,000 for the entire school, not counting replacements.

The class told councillors how they took on responsibility for recycling those batteries, placing a bin outside their classroom that when full gets emptied by CMA recycling for export.

CMA sends at least a tonne of batteries to Auckland each week.