World Elephant Day is an international annual event on August 12, dedicated to the preservation and protection of the world’s elephants and is now supported by over 65 wildlife organisations and many individuals in countries across the globe.

Not wishing to stomp on their parade, WasteCare want to take this opportunity to remind us all how important it is for everyone to do their bit to help our environment.

Currently in the UK over 20,000 tonnes of portable batteries end up in landfill sites every year. That is over 800 million batteries! Equivalent to the weight of over 4,400 African elephants.

To raise awareness of this issue, Duracell in partnership with WasteCare, organised, for the third year running, the Big Battery Hunt, recruiting over 1.3million schoolkids from 5,500 schools across the UK. So far this year the Big Battery Hunt has been responsible for recycling an additional 170 tonnes of used portable batteries with another 29,641 contributing to our full-sized sculpture.

With schools competing for prizes ranging from a 2-night class trip to the Sustainability Centre to an ipad, the plan is for the Big Battery Hunt to become an annual stampede, ensuring valuable commodities are not discarded but recycled for a sustainable future. The used battery can so easily be forgotten, hopefully Jumbo will remind us never to forget the importance of recycling.

Currently resident at Hanwell Zoo in West London, Jumbo, the 10ft-tall sculpture will be making an appearance at the RWM Show at the NEC, Birmingham on the 11th-12th September. We hope to see you there.

In the meantime, if your school wishes to find out more about the Big Battery Hunt simply go to https://www.bigbatteryhunt.co.uk/