About the Kerbside Trials
WRAP is working with twelve partner organisations in 13 Local Authority areas across the UK to trial the kerbside collection of waste batteries. Click on the following links to find out more!
- Organisations Involved in the Trial
- Partners and their Schemes "at a glance"
- Trial Facts
- Q&A on the scheme
Trial Update
The trials, which commenced in March 2006, initially covered over 350,000 households in a mixture of high-rise, urban and rural areas across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The schemes vary greatly in terms of the number and types of households and geographical areas covered, for example ranging from very rural parts of Scotland, to urban areas of Merseyside.
How will they be Collected?
Householders in the trial areas receive a dedicated collection container for their batteries (either sealable polythene bags or a small cardboard box). They place all their waste batteries in the container and put it out for collection along with their other materials for recycling. In all schemes batteries can be put out for collection whenever the materials in the appropriate box/bag are being collected.
All Types of Batteries can be Collected, Including:
- All AAA and AA cells
- Sizes C and D
- Button batteries
- Mobile phone and laptop batteries
It doesn’t matter if the batteries are full, partially used or out of date. We also welcome all types of rechargeable batteries.
Unfortunately we CANNOT accept car and other similar vehicle batteries through this scheme.
These should be taken to Household Waste Recycling Centres where these facilities exist.
Outside of the Trial Areas
Householders who are not currently covered by a batteries collection scheme but are keen to recycle their household batteries should contact their Local Authority to establish whether there is a batteries collection point at their local Household Waste Recycling Centre as some (but not all) of these centres provide this service.
What Happens After Collection
Once put out by the householder, the bags or boxes of batteries are separated by the crews and put into a box on the collection vehicle. The batteries are then taken to a depot and placed in a dedicated battery container which, once almost full, is collected by G&P Batteries Ltd (WRAP’s designated Transport, Sorting and Reprocessing contractor) who then take them to a recycling centre in the UK.
The batteries are then sorted into batches based on the chemical content of the battery, then reprocessed to produce a number of different compounds that can be reused to produce new batteries, materials or products.
