This is a short article from Edie about Currys PC World trialling home battery collection when they deliver new appliances. A survey last year indicated that 6 in ten of those questioned hoard used batteries and that the total holding amounts to some 178M. The UK's battery recycling rate in 2016 was just below the EU target of 45%, which , in itself, seems to me to be somewhat unambitious.
So, if Currys' pilot is successful will it make a difference? I have no idea how many domestic deliveries Currys make in a year but let us suppose that they visit 1% of UK households. That could result in up to 1.8M batteries being recycled. Now, some of those would have been recycled anyway; let's say 50%. A nationwide scheme might thus make a net gain in recycling of 0.9M units.
On a quick trawl of the net I was unable to find a figure for the total number of units recycled in a year, only details of overall weight (OK I'm a lazy so-and-so). However, my gut feeling is that the scheme could work.
ONS statistics show that there are some 19M families in the UK, or, to take a different cut, 27M households. That would suggest that each household, on average, is retaining 6.5 batteries. This actually compares nicely with the 7 that I currently have awaiting a trip to a recycling point.
There is another action that I think could help and that is for retailers to make their recycling points more obvious. The regulations relating to providing recycling facilities are quite stringent - a shop selling on average one pack of 4 AA batteries per day would be expected to provide such facilities; but how often does one notice them? It's a case of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. A little encouragement could go a long way.
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