About the Batteries Programme

Research shows that the average household uses 21 batteries per year and that around 600m UK batteries are sent to landfill every year.

The driver

The EU Batteries Directive is due to become UK law shortly. The Directive requires that 25% by weight of portable (household) batteries placed on the market each year are collected for recycling by 2012, rising to 45% in 2016. This is a very challenging target. The current collection rate in the UK is estimated to be around 2.3%.

The WRAP Battery programme

WRAP was commissioned by Defra and the Devolved Administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at the end of 2005 to establish a Batteries Programme. Its aim was to run a seies of trials to gain an understanding of the most cost efficient and effective ways to collect portable batteries in line with the targets set by the Directive.

Greater understanding

In addition to establishing the most cost efficient methods of collecting batteries, a greater understanding of the quantity of batteries that can be collected through different types of collection schemes and their chemistries was also required.

The different schemes

The different types of collectio schemes that were trialled were:

kerbside collection;
retail take back;
community drop off; and
postal.

A small scale series of trials were also run with the NHS and Fire Service.

The kerbside trials started in April 2006, with the other trials starting at various times through the following year.

Going forward

As the Batteries Directive is expected to be transposed into UK law shortly, WRAP is continuing to fund most of these trials until March 2009.

After the Directive comes into force, it will be the legal responsibility of battery producers to fund battery collection schemes and therefore WRAP's involvement in the trials is expected to cease.