Hands up who recycles their batteries! No? Well I confess I’m guilty of throwing them out when the old ones in my remote control work as well as if I had put two pieces of baby corn into the compartment.
At the moment less than 3 per cent of portable batteries in the UK are recycled which, let’s face it, is a pittance.
In the UK though, new regulations came into being in May 2009 that requires recycling levels to rise to 45 per cent of batteries by 2016. This means over 500 million batteries aim to be put to better use than creating more landfills.
Us, regular power consumers can do our little bit by sending off our batteries free of charge to be recycled. Companies like BatteryBack will recycle your used AAs for free.
To make things easier for us, BatteryBack is aiming to provide over 80,000 free collection points over the next 2 years in places like schools, colleges, libraries and supermarkets. At the moment there are currently 1,200 free collection points in the UK, that you could put to good use now. To find the nearest one to you, you can try out their post code finder.
For any change to really take place though, it will be up to bigger companies and organisations who use and produce batteries to take the recycling plunge.
From the 1st January 2010 BatteryBack will provide FREE battery collection and recycling for producers who join their Producer Compliance Scheme. This is not a bad deal because from this date, producers and retailers will be responsible for the cost of collection and recovery of waste batteries in the UK.
For more information on how to recycle your battery waste and get some eco-credit to your name, check out the links below:
Battery recycling - BatteryBack
Battery recycling - WasteCare