Residents living in St Edmundsbury will soon be able to recycle even more of their household waste after the council joined the country’s biggest battery recycling trial.
Last month, St Edmundsbury’s Cabinet agreed to an innovative year-long battery kerbside collection trial in partnership with WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme). The council’s fleet of 11 waste trucks is now being fitted with special collection boxes before the scheme is officially launched to the borough’s 44,500 homes in April.
The simple and easy-to-use trial asks residents to put their used, part-used and unwanted batteries in special bags. The distinctive white and magenta-coloured collection bags bear the message ‘Do the positive thing. Recycle your batteries’ and clearly show the types of household batteries which can be collected including AAA, AA, C, and D-size batteries as well as button, mobile phone, laptop and rechargeable batteries.
Cllr Jeremy Farthing, Portfolio Holder with responsibility for the environment, said:
“By making battery recycling simple and easy we want to encourage people to recycle all their unwanted household batteries rather than throwing them away; it is vital that we seize this opportunity to divert them away from landfill. This is yet more proof of St Edmundsbury’s commitment to safeguarding the environment, and hope this will deliver real benefits to the community.”
The St Edmundsbury battery recycling scheme will form part of the UK’s biggest battery recycling trial. Elsewhere in the country, WRAP is also operating retailer take-back and introducing new community drop-off and postal trials for battery recycling.
Results from the different trials will help the government identify the best collection strategy, to enable the UK to meet the requirements of the EU Batteries Directive which states that 25 percent of all household batteries should be collected for recycling by 2012.
Chris Davey, Manager Local Authority Relations at WRAP, said:
“Batteries may seem small but around 600 million UK batteries are sent to landfill sites unnecessarily every year. In conjunction with the local council here in St Edmundsbury, we are offering residents the opportunity to recycle their used and unwanted batteries through our scheme. It’s quick and easy to add batteries to your recycling routine and every single one helps. So even if you only have one or two batteries or a whole handful, we want them for recycling.”
When the scheme goes live, residents will be given information on how to use the battery bags in order to recycle all their unwanted batteries.
For more information on the scheme, you can:
- contact waste management at St Edmundsbury on 01284 757320;
- phone the national helpline on 08453 313131; or
- visit www.recyclenow.com
ENDS
Notes to editors:
For more information about WRAP, which was established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, please visit www.wrap.org.uk
Contacts:
Zoe Hatton or Laura Grant, Lawton Public Relations, 023 8082 8500
Email: zoe.hatton@lawton.co.uk or laura.grant@lawton.co.uk
Sarah Dunn, Senior Press Officer, WRAP, 01295 819695
Email: sarah.dunn@wrap.org.uk
Ely Devellennes, Batteries and Collections Project Officer, 01295 819673
Email: ely.devellennes@wrap.org.uk
ISSUED BY LIZ HEARNSHAW, COMMUNICATIONS UNIT, ST EDMUNDSBURY BOROUGH COUNCIL. Phone 01284 757033. liz.hearnshaw@stedsbc.gov.uk
