Recycling At Home - Batteries
Recycling facilities for batteries are steadily growing and if you have a facility for recycling them in your area please take advantage of it. Many types of batteries contain substances which are categorised as hazardous, although the toxic materials have now been removed from ordinary batteries, which means that these ordinary batteries can be disposed of with your normal household waste if you do not have a local recycling facility.However, rechargeable nickel cadmium batteries do still contain hazardous metals, and these should be returned to the manufacturer if possible once you have finished with them.
There are also new versions of rechargeable batteries available which contain no mercury or cadmium so it is worth keeping a look out for these.
Lead acid car batteries can sometimes be recycled at your local recycling facility, otherwise they can be taken to a garage when you buy a new one, and they will dispose of it safely.
What you can do -
What you can do -
- Use the mains when possible.
- Use rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. This saves energy because the energy needed to manufacture a battery is on average 50 times greater than the energy it gives out. However, rechargeable batteries are not suitable for smoke alarms as they tend to run out suddenly.
- 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.
- Participate in local authority battery collection schemes where they are available. If your Council does not provide one at the moment, contact them and ask about their plans for providing this service.
- Seek guidance on how to dispose of or recycle batteries from either the distributor who originally supplied the battery, the battery manufacturer or the appliance manufacturer.
- Send batteries back to manufacturers for recycling or reprocessing where such a scheme is available.
- Use rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. This saves energy because the energy needed to manufacture a battery is on average 50 times greater than the energy it gives out. However, rechargeable batteries are not suitable for smoke alarms as they tend to run out suddenly.
- 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.
- Participate in local authority battery collection schemes where they are available. If your Council does not provide one at the moment, contact them and ask about their plans for providing this service.
- Seek guidance on how to dispose of or recycle batteries from either the distributor who originally supplied the battery, the battery manufacturer or the appliance manufacturer.
- Send batteries back to manufacturers for recycling or reprocessing where such a scheme is available.
