§ Lord Beaumont of Whitleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the tonnage of batteries disposed of annually in the United Kingdom, in general, and nickel cadmium in particular; what is the content of heavy metal involved; what recycling facilities are (a) available now and (b) planned for the next two years. [HL3429]
45WA
§ Lord WhittyA government-funded study from 2000 predicted that a total of 186,314 tonnes of batteries would arise as waste in 2002. Of these, 2,279 tonnes were predicted to be nickel-cadmium batteries and 162,993 automotive and industrial lead-acid batteries. This corresponds to 396 tonnes of cadmium and 104,044 tonnes of lead.
Ninety per cent of waste automotive and industrial lead acid batteries in the UK are recycled at one of two UK lead smelters, Britannia Refined Metals in Kent and H.J. Enthoven & Sons in Derbyshire. Button cells containing mercury are recycled in the UK at Odin Technology and Mercury Recycling. Spent silver oxide batteries are reprocessed by Engelhard Ltd. A scheme called Bat-Re-Back has been established to collect industrial nickel cadmium batteries. These are currently sent to France to be recycled. According to the European Batteries Recycling Association 424 tonnes of nickel-cadmium batteries, from the UK, were recycled in 2002.
In addition to these types of waste batteries, around 20,514 of waste primary consumer batteries were predicted to arise in 2002. A major pilot scheme for collecting consumer batteries is currently underway in Bristol which hopes to collect batteries from every household in the city. The scheme planned to send the batteries collected to Britannia Zinc for recycling, but due to the closure of the zinc smelter the batteries will now be recycled abroad.