ADVICE & OPINION
COMPLIANCE
TAKING CHARGE OF BATTERIES
How many electrical items is your business
responsible for? Twenty? Five hundred?
From laptops and mobile phones, to kettles and
printers, our reliance on electronic technology
keeps growing.
These products speed up communications, bring
vast information resources to our fingertips, and
even make us a tasty cuppa, but as technology
advances, the environmental impact of outdated
or malfunctioning equipment is huge. FMs will be
aware of the responsibility to recycle unwanted
waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE),
but the batteries inside these products are o en
overlooked.
FIRE RISKS
Increasingly, fires caused by exploding batteries
are putting recycling workers and members of the
public at risk, while causing hundreds of thousands
of pounds in damage to collection
vehicles and facilities.
Battery fires have always been a
problem but, with waste electronics
charging into the lead as the world’s
fastest-growing waste stream,
coupled with an increase in the
number of items using less stable
lithium-ion batteries, fires caused
by batteries are occurring more
regularly.
While we all know that paper and
glass should be recycled, people
are o en less aware that more
hazardous wastes like batteries and
WEEE are just as easy to recycle.
Businesses can even recycle
batteries free of charge. However,
because these items are small, they
tend to end up in the general waste.
If they are crushed in a recycling vehicle, or water
damaged, they can self-combust, with devastating
results. Heat can also cause problems and, with
more sta• working from home, FMs should make
employees aware of the potential dangers.
The lithium-ion batteries found in mobile phones,
tablets, laptops and electric cars are especially
susceptible. Will Gander, Service Lead at Redcar
and Cleveland Borough Council, said: “They pose
a real threat to our crews and equipment, not to
mention to the public. We’ve had seven fires caused
by batteries placed in general waste, and have just
been lucky that our crews have been quick-thinking
14 SEPTEMBER 2021
and managed to save the vehicles.”
The risk of fires has highlighted the need to
remove batteries from the general bins in o• ices and
homes, but this is not the only reason to recycle.
Batteries contain many valuable components
and, as lithium becomes an increasingly valuable
commodity for the manufacture of batteries used
in electric cars, it is more and more sought a er in
the UK.
TOXIC LEGACY
Added to this, batteries that end up in landfill have
the potential to leak toxic chemicals. Since the
Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations came
into force in 2009, it has been compulsory to collect
or take back and recycle batteries and the legislation
also prevents batteries from being incinerated or
dumped in landfill sites.
Under the regulations, manufacturers or importers
that first place batteries onto the UK
market – including those in products
– are responsible for compliance
if the business has a UK presence.
Producers must register with a
compliance firm to pay a fee, based
on the weight of batteries they place
on the market. The fee is to show
that the correct volume of recycling
has taken place.
UK distributors and retailers that
sell or supply more than 32 kg of
portable batteries a year must
provide a take-back service for
members of the public who can
donate batteries at large retailer
stores, as well as at household
waste recycling centres (HWRCs)
run by the local council. However, of
the 18,000 tonnes of batteries sold
in the UK in 2019, only 8,000 tonnes of the smaller,
household-type batteries were recycled. Clearly,
more needs to be done to raise awareness.
As the compliance partner to thousands of
businesses, Valpak operates 40,000 collection sites
around the UK. We also manage the recycle-more
website, which helps businesses and members
of the public to find local recycling facilities. The
site allows people to search by postcode and item,
listing the options for recycling in the local area.
FREE BATTERY COLLECTION
In an e• ort to encourage more people to recycle,
Valpak provides free battery collections to
businesses throughout the UK. In 2020, we won a
National Recycling Award for the UK’s first reverse
logistics, carbon-free battery collection service. The
scheme aims to collect batteries from hard-to-reach
city centres. Our partner, Zedify, uses zero-carbon
bike couriers to deliver parcels to o• ices and retail
outlets, where they then collect waste batteries for
recycling.
The Re-volt scheme has already collected over 13
tonnes of batteries from businesses in London and
Cambridge, and recently expanded to Brighton.
In Hereford, Valpak collaborates with Pedicargo
on a similar project. The latest incarnation of
#PowerToDoMore uses QR codes to track the
volume of batteries collected at household waste
recycling sites. When members of the public drop o•
batteries for recycling, they scan a QR code which
provides Valpak with analytics. For every battery
collected, Valpak will donate £1 to charity.
With the trend for laptops, mobile phones and
other cordless devices showing no sign of waning,
we need to find ways to deal with the potential
hazards of batteries. Free battery collections mean
FMs can easily recycle both workplace batteries and
those brought from employee’s homes while also
helping to raise awareness of the dangers.
The trend for cordless products is triggering a dangerous increase in battery
incidents. James Nash, Commercial Manager at Valpak, explains how free
waste battery collections can help prevent fi res and other hazards
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