Battery recycling

Why recycle batteries?

We consume millions of batteries every year in portable appliances from remote controls to personal stereos. The average household uses 21 batteries a year. Sadly around 600 million UK household batteries (22,000 tonnes) are sent to landfill unnecessarily every year. Batteries contain heavy metals which can present a risk to health, safety and the environment when disposed of in landfill sites.

What type of batteries can be recycled?

Any general purpose dry cell household batteries including:

• Zinc carbon used in low drainage appliances such as torches, clocks, shavers and radios.
• Zinc chloride used in similar applications.
• Alkaline manganese used in personal stereos, radio-cassette players.
• Primary button cells.
• Mercuric oxide used in batteries for hearing aids, pacemakers, photographic equipment.
• Zinc air - an alternative to mercuric oxide button cells - used for hearing aids and radio pagers.
• Silver oxide used for electronic watches and calculators.
• Lithium used for watches and photographic equipment.
• Any dry-cell rechargeable batteries for the above uses, and also including Nickel cadmium, Nickel metal hydride and Lithium-Ion batteries used in power tools, cordless appliances, mobile phones, lap-top computers, power tools, shavers, motorised toys etc.

What type of batteries can do be recycled?

Wet cell batteries such as car batteries contain hazardous acids and must be taken to a household recycling centre for professional disposal.

What you can do to help solve the problem?

• Use the mains when possible.
• Use Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries which are seen a less environmentally harmful alternative to NiCd and tend to have a longer life.
• Use rechargeable batteries. This saves energy because the energy needed to manufacture a battery is on average 50 times greater than the energy it gives out.
• Opt for appliances that can use power derived from the sun via solar panels or from a winding mechanism, e.g. radios, mobile phone wind-up chargers.
• Recycle old batteries! In Shrewsbury area batteries are collected with the kerbside box recycling scheme. All the household recycling centres in Shropshire accept dry cell batteries for recycling.

All the batteries collected in Shropshire are sent to G&P Batteries Ltd in West Bromich for reprocessing and the metals are recovered and recycled. All battery recycling is done at no expense to the taxpayer with EU producer responsibity regulations requiring battery manufacturers to fund recycling. For more information visit their website (follow the link).

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