NHS and Fire Service trials

These small scale trials were set up to understand the quanity of batteries that could be collected through the Fire Service and NHS hospitals.  Both these establishments have contact with the public and their portable batteries.

For instance, and audiology department will have hundreds of patients that return used hearing aid batteries and fire services replace smoke alarms in domestic settings.  Furthermore, these types of organisation use considerable numbers of batteries in the conduct of their business.

Participating bodies

  • East Berkshire Audiology NHS department (August 2007).
    Collecting hearing aid batteries across six of their audiology centres
  • Craigavon NHS (June 2007) (now Southern Trust).
    Collecting general batteries from their hospitals.
  • Dumfries & Galloway Fire Brigade (September 2007).
    Collecting batteries from home visits for smoke alarm checks and batteries from torches, walkie-talkies and other used batteries that arise from their day-to-day work.
  • Trafford NHS (February 2008).
    Collecting general batteries from their hospitals.

How are the schemes performing?

0.81 tonnes of batteries had been collected through these schemes.  However, it should be noted that this figure is relatively low due to the schemes not starting until the latter half of 2007.

A hospital corridor.