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Battery recycling

Most supermarkets and shops that sell batteries now collect them free of charge for recycling. (This applies to those stores that supply more than 32kg of batteries to consumers per year). Look out for the Be Positive sign and collection bins in store, or ask retailers for details.

You can recycle all sorts of batteries from mobile phones and cameras, to hearing aids and torches, anywhere you see the Be Positive sign.

You can also recycle your batteries (including car batteries) at the county council's Household Waste and Recycling Centres. See WasteAware for your nearest site. In addition, Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council has a container in reception at the council building, The Campus, Welwyn Garden City.

Did you know

In the UK only about three to five per cent of batteries are recycled. However battery recycling is important, not only because they contain a range of metals that we should avoid sending to landfill, (including lead, nickel-cadmium, nickel hydride and mercury), but also because these are all metals that can be reused.

• around 600 million UK household batteries (22,000 tonnes) - the equivalent weight of 110 Jumbo Jets - are sent to landfill unnecessarily every year.
• the average household uses 21 batteries a year, all of which could be recycled
• more than 80 percent of respondents put their used household batteries in the normal rubbish bin.

(Consumer Battery Collection Trials, WRAP, 2006)