The council's waste management contractor ECT Recycling will collect the batteries via the green box scheme, which will then be sent to France for reprocessing.
 Cllr Marian McNeir, chair of Bath & North East Somerset council, launches the new battery recycling service |
The launch of the battery service was timed to coincide with the launch of the national recycling campaign “Recycle Now” this week (see letsrecycle.com story). The council is advising householders to place batteries in a small paper of plastic bag before including them in their green kerbside boxes.
Announcing the new service, the council's executive member for environment and sustainability, Rosemary Todd, said: “The council has had a lot of enquiries from members of the public wishing to recycle their old batteries and is pleased to be able to offer this service.”
Targets
Cllr Todd added that she was pleased that her council could join neighbouring Bristol city council in providing battery recycling collections. At the moment, Bath & North East Somerset is recycling about 29% of the waste from its 73,000 households, with targets to achieve 36% by 2005/06. The council is hoping to exceed these targets and reach a 50% rate by 2008.
The council now collects paper, cardboard, glass, steel cans, aluminium cans, aluminium foil, clothing, car batteries, household batteries, sump oil, plastic bottles, garden waste and fridges for recycling.
While collections of batteries for recycling count towards local authority recycling targets, at the moment, there are no specific requirements for household batteries to be collected for recycling. But, Europe is currently drawing up a new Battery Directive that could see battery recycling targets introduced (see letsrecycle.com battery section).
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