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Bristol
City Council along with Britannia Zinc are to run the first household
batteries collection scheme in the UK from 16 September. This campaign
will be the first in the UK
to offer local recycling as well as kerbside collection. It will
utilise the facilities at
Britannia Zinc Ltd (BZL) to recycle the batteries. The UK consumes
batteries at a rate
of 22,000 tonnes per year. BZL believes it has the capacity to take
all used batteries
within the UK and maybe even more. Having a recycling facility within
the UK will also reduce transportation costs as prior to this all
batteries have been taken to facilities
within mainland Europe.
The plant at BZL is capable
of treating unsorted mixes of batteries. This differs from other schemes
within Europe which need to sort batteries into specific type either
by hand or through specific machinery. BZL's method will be cheaper
to run due to the removal of this initial sorting phase. It is thought
that this may prove enough incentive for other European countries
to import their spent consumer batteries for recycling.
The
Battery Recycling Campaign is programmed to run for twelve months.
During that time, the quantity of batteries collected and processed
will be small compared to BZL's total throughput of raw feeds, perhaps
around 10 or 20 tonnes. However, the project represents an important
early step in BZL demonstrating its capability to handle the batteries.
In time, around 10,000 tonnes or so of batteries may be available
for recycling in the UK.
Further updates to come....
BRISTOL
BATTERY RECYCLING CAMPAIGN - UPDATE
Monday 16
/ 09 /02 Broadmead, the Bristol Battery Recycling Campaign
was officially launched. The launch consisted of media coverage,
information packs,
a competition and various novelty acts. Jonathon Porritt, Government
Adviser on environmental matters, was also present to support the
launch.
Over the next week or so,
Bristol households will receive an information pack and battery
recycling bags in their post. The batteries will be sent to BZL
for processing. We are also planning to run a full-scale trial within
the next 2 months to confirm some of the technical
and operating assumptions made about battery processing.
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