Council introduces battery recycling

A new recycling incentive for used batteries and plastic bottles has been introduced in Edinburgh, with kerbside boxes being distributed for home collections.

Residents can now recycle plastic bottles and batteries with colour coordinated boxes provided by the council. Plastic bottles will be collected in red recycling boxes, whereas, batteries will be picked up from blue boxes.

Cllr Robert Aldridge, the environmental leader, said: "It is important as a city that we lower the amount of rubbish sent to landfill and the introduction of these new services will make it easier for residents to recycle even more materials."

Edinburgh City Council carried out a consultation which showed that inhabitants mostly enquired about bottles and batteries’ recycling policies. The European Recycling Platform revealed that only three per cent of all household batteries in the UK were recycled, and more surprisingly that 29 per cent of the population did not even know they could be recycled. Moreover, the latest YouGov studies showed that 275000 tonnes of plastic are used every year in the UK, the equivalent of 15 million plastic bottles each day.

Batteries can be brought to shops and council recycling centres but recycling them directly at home will make things easier and could be an incentive for many people to change their attitudes towards improving the environment.

This innovation is a response to the “Zero Waste Plan” published by the Scottish Government in June 2010. Key targets include separate food waste collections to be introduced in 2013, a ban on recyclable waste from landfill by 2015 and a ban on biodegradable waste from landfill from 2017. The council has a target to increase recycling to 75 per cent by 2020.

The target aims to reduce taxes paid on landfill. The city council currently spends £7 million on landfill tax, and it is expected to increase to £12 million if no action is taken to help people produce less waste. This initiative will prevent waste ending up in landfills and the environment being polluted by batteries’ toxic releases.

Cllr Aldridge said: "We are really stepping up our recycling activity in Edinburgh with the introduction of a food waste pilot due to start soon, and now householders will also be able to recycle batteries and plastic bottles at the kerbside.

The food recycling scheme is set to trial in the east of Edinburgh and will be extended to the rest of the city if successful.