Recycling: batteries not included

Another blog, another terrible headline. For that, I can only apologise, but it's emerged recently that we have a shocking record when it comes to recycling batteries in the UK.

New figures have listed Switzerland as the top battery collector at 65%, followed by Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and France. The UK comes in 15th place at 3% alongside Turkey, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

To be honest, I've been using rechargeables so long now I can't remember the last time I had to arrange to have a battery recycled, but I'm definitely in the minority – every year the equivalent of 110 jumbo jets’ weight in old batteries end up in UK landfills.

Whichever way you look at it, I'd say that's a pretty poor showing. Yet the survey revealed that nine out of 10 people would be willing to recycle them if a door-to-door collection scheme was available in their area – which is currently available to only seven percent of UK's population.

That makes Tony Pedrotti's statements last week seem a little bit odd. Last week in Parliament, the (deep breath!) Director of the Environmental and Technical Regulation Directorate at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that making a 'culture change will be the biggest challenge'.

Now, I'm thinking that if nearly everybody, or at least nine out of 10, is willing to recycle batteries if it's made simple and convenient, surely that's the biggest part of the battle won? At the very least, the 'culture change' should be happening with our local councils – they're the ones that can make home collection possible throughout the country.

Of course in the long run, the best thing to do is to stop using batteries altogether. There's a host of alternatives here, none of which use batteries and hence do not need home collection, recycling or to gather uselessly in the back of a drawer.

Have a great week!

Edwin