Residents of Milton Keynes have recycled more than 14 tonnes of batteries since the council implemented a battery recycling scheme last year, making the town one of the country’s biggest battery recyclers.
Introduced as part of the council’s weekly refuse and recycling collection service last July, the scheme asks residents to collect household, button, laptop and mobile phone batteries in a sealable yellow bag (distributed by their local authority) and, when they have collected at least ten batteries, seal the bag and leave it for collection on top of their green food and garden waste bin. The collection crew then replaces the bag with an empty one.
Andy Hudson, Head of Environment and Waste at Milton Keynes Council, praised residents for their efforts, saying: “We’d like to congratulate the residents of Milton Keynes for their enthusiastic participation in our battery recycling scheme – over a tonne of batteries recycled each month is a significant amount. By removing these potentially harmful batteries from landfill we are saving money and helping our environment.”
According to Milton Keynes council, the UK throws away more than 600 million batteries each year, and only recycles four per cent of household batteries.
The scheme is run in conjunction with environmental compliance company Valpak, who are responsible for taking collected batteries to companies across the UK and Europe for recycling. Valpak also partners in similar programmes with 15 other local authorities throughout the UK.
Congratulating Milton Keynes, a Valpak spokesperson said: “With the challenging EU battery recycling targets to meet, which increase each year, we can only achieve these targets if people get behind local battery recycling schemes.
“The residents of Milton Keynes have shown they are more than willing to recycle their batteries and their support enables us to recycle and reuse the materials found in all collected batteries.”
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