Battery recycling has become a key environmental issue over the last year as multiple studies carried out in the United Kingdom showed that the nation is far behind when it comes to the recycling of batteries. In fact, a recent report showed that only around three percent of batteries are actually recycled, and the majority of the rest end up in landfills where they can leak harmful chemicals into the soil that eventually contaminate water supplies. The government of the UK has started to crack down on this by putting pressure on those who make and sell batteries to offer easy and free options for their customers to recycle batteries. In a recent bit of legislation the government made it law that those making automotive and industrial batteries will be forced to help in the recycling of their product.
According to law that will go into effect at the beginning of the new year, the producers of automotive and industrial batteries will be forced to arrange for the free pick up, treatment, and recycling of the batteries that they make and sell if they are requested to do so by the end users of the batteries. The law will also require those that make batteries to register themselves as a producer of batteries and then the amount of batteries that they make and dispose of will be monitored to ensure that all of these batteries end up being disposed of in a proper manner.
The new law will also include a complete ban on disposing of these types of batteries by incineration or in landfills.
|
|
