Now local authorities and retailers looking to promote battery recycling to consumers will not have the benefit of a single colour promotional scheme which links in with WRAP's well-developed recycling iconography.
The decision by the Department, which is now carrying out some of its own promotional work for recycling, even though WRAP has developed considerable expertise in this area, has caused some surprise. Defra is promoting a “be-positive” battery recycling campaign based on the ideas that batteries have a positive side.
One local authority expert told letsrecycle.com: “It makes no sense when Defra had the opportunity to get an identifiable campaign underway especially when yellow and black are associated with radioactive, hazardous and hospital waste. Pink is already being used by WRAP and many local authorities for waste electrical and electronic equipment and was used in the WRAP battery trials.”
However, WRAP has no longer any involvement with batteries, with Defra taking responsibility for portable consumer batteries.
Concerns about potential confusion were also raised by LARAC, the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee.
Joy Blizzard, LARAC chair, said: “I had hoped that anything that is done matches up with the national colour coding we already have because so many local authorities are already using the WRAP colour coding and it would be a shame to confuse the public. Let's hope it is not too late to change Defra's mind about this.”
Defra responded saying that it had chosen generic colours to be
legible from a distance.
Window
A spokeswoman said: “Our aim with the design was to make the posters stand out visually and at the same time be clearly legible from a distance when displayed in a window or shop and that is why we chose to use strong but generic colours.
“Primarily designed for use by retailers, all are welcome to use our posters if they wish to incorporate them into their own advertising and they have been designed so that they can be re-coloured by retailers or local authorities. Some local authorities are already committed to using their own designs while others were involved in the WRAP battery collection trials and it's important they can continue to use these if they choose to.”
Among the schemes which will be promoting consumer collections, ERP is using red publicity material, Valpak is using pink and Batteryback is using green and black.
A spokeswoman for WRAP told letsrecycle.com: “We are not doing batteries any more. We hope the campaigns will be successful in raising awareness to get more done on the battery front.” And, the spokeswoman confirmed that WRAP's WEEE work, is “definitely pink”.
The UK's regulations for battery recycling, which place responsibility on battery manufacturers to fund the collection, treatment and disposal of waste batteries, are set to come into force next week (January 1).
And, the regulatory requirement for retailers to provide free in-store take-back of waste portable batteries is scheduled to come into effect one month later, on February 1.
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