Recycling Batteries
Why Batteries
Recycling batteries is important for a number of reasons. Batteries can contain highly toxic chemicals such as lead, mercury or cadmium. When you dispose of them with your normal rubbish, most will end up in landfill where the chemicals they contain may leak into the ground. This can pollute the soil and water and potentially harm human health.
Recycling also recovers some of the materials used to make batteries and these can be used again to make other products and potentially to make new batteries. Recycling can also save some of the earth’s natural resources and save on CO2 emissions by reducing the need to mine new materials.
Where you can recycle batteries?
Batteries are collected at a number of recycling points run by several Compliance Schemes. Schemes provide online post code locators of the battery recycling points they operate. You can use the links below to find out about battery recycling points near you.
If you live in South Cambridgeshire you can recycle batteries on your doorstep using a battery recycling bag which is collected along with the blue bin.
Recycling points locators
Reducing waste
Why not try avoiding waste in the first place? Buy a charger and rechargeable batteries if possible. It will save you money on the disposable batteries in the long term and will help protecting the environment.
See our pages on reducing waste to learn more about different ways to reduce waste and save money in the same time.
