Duracell’s Big Battery Hunt – an initiative aiming to change communities’ behaviours by encouraging children to recycle used batteries – has led over half a million pupils to recycle more than 2.3 million batteries.

Recent figures demonstrate that UK residents collectively hoard up to 433 million used batteries, while over 20,000 tonnes of batteries end up in UK landfill sites each year, creating a major environmental challenge. Duracell, a leading manufacturer of alkaline batteries, is aiming to raise awareness of this problem and encourage more proactive engagement regarding recycling batteries.

The Big Battery Hunt initiative targets long-term behaviour change by focusing on school children and encouraging them to involve their families. After a pilot scheme in 2017 that targeted 40 schools, this year 554,255 pupils from 2,379 schools countrywide have registered to participate. Duracell, with the support of youth engagement agency We Are Futures, has developed a range of free educational materials to help teachers educate pupils on the importance of recycling. The company has also provided schools with five-litre and 30-litre recycling bins in which they can deposit the used batteries, meaning it is very easy for families to participate.

Christina Turner, Associate Marketing Director at Duracell UK commented: “The initial results have once again surpassed our expectations and proved how the enthusiasm among the youngest members of our community can have a positive long term impact on the environment.”

Indeed, some have gone above and beyond, including one pupil in West Lothian who handed in 8,253 used batteries. Duracell has praised the enthusiasm shown by the students and says that the scheme is on track to collect 278 tonnes of used batteries in total.

David Reynolds, Group Technical Director at WasteCare, which owns BatteryBack, the UK’s largest battery compliance scheme, said: “The average Brit now uses about 10 batteries a year, and as a country we use 189 million batteries at Christmas alone, so it’s not hard to imagine the numbers of used batteries either left redundant in kitchen drawers or even worse, in landfill sites.

“Given current recycling rates, it is clear we need to urgently and collectively change our nation’s attitude to recycling and we are delighted to partner with Duracell for a second year to learn how to do this successfully in order to make a positive, permanent change”.

While the UK’s battery recycling rate fell short of the 45 per cent target in 2016, this high-profile and far-reaching campaign follows a number of significant recent developments. Last year, behaviour change charity Hubbub, in partnership with Ecosurety, launched Bring Back Heavy Metal, a campaign which also aimed to encourage people to recycle their batteries and which has a useful online tool showing the exact location of your nearest recycling point. Ecosurety is also in the process of developing the UK’s first battery recycling plant with recycling solutions firm Belmont Trading UK at Belmont’s site near Glasgow, which will have the capacity to process 20,000 tonnes of waste batteries a year.

Schools can register to recycle used batteries throughout the year at the national schools partnership website.