The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said that more roadside collection points and greater information to the public are two ‘critical’ factors in ensuring Britain meets its battery recycling targets.

The Consortium is confident that retailers are ready and willing to provide this service. Bob Gordon, head of environment at BRC says:

“The aim of reducing the number of batteries going to landfill is a good one. Retailers recognise their responsibilities and they’re ready with the facilities.”

The challenge now is to make sure that the provided collection points cause minimum disruption to the retailers and customers. BatteryBack appear to be the only battery recycler that have come up with a bespoke, easily recognisable container which has been specially designed to cause minimum disruption throughout the collection and recycling process. Peter Hunt, Chief executive of BatteryBack explains:

“As far as we are aware only one other scheme is supplying a recycling vessel to retailers, and this is in the form of a cardboard box which cannot be used to transport the batteries. The BatteryCans that we use are robust and offer minimal disruption to the retailer as they do not have to be decanted before transportation.”

BatteryBack already has over 10,000 battery collection points across the UK at civic amenity sites, schools, supermarkets and other retailers. The number of BatteryCan collection points is growing daily and BatteryBack aim to have 30,000 sites by the end of 2010.