Business Waste - A top priority

www.letsrecycle.com reports that the new waste and recycling Minister, Jane Kennedy, will make tackling business waste a top priority.

The 2007 North West Commercial & Industrial Waste Survey - shows that the retail sector already has a recycling rate of above 50%. This is because a lot of retail waste is homogeneous packaging. Survey evidence also suggests that an increasing number of retailers are taking their waste back to service depots on delivery vehicles.

British Retail Consortium calls for lower VAT on green goods

The Retail Bulletin reports that the BRC is lobbying the European Union for lower VAT charges on green goods. This would cover items such as light-bulbs, boilers, insulation etc.

CO-OP supports Manchester Congestion Charge

The Manchester Evening News reports that the CO-OP has become one of the latest businesses to back the Manchester Congestion Charge zone.

The proposed project would involve £3bn investment in transport infrastructure in Greater Manchester.

Charge for holiday brochures

Retail Bulletin reports that holiday firm i-to-i is planning to introduce charges for its brochures. The company has put all brochures on-line and will offer a bespoke printing service for those wanting paper brochures.

In 2007 our team surveyed several travel agents as part of the Chester/Bolton/Oldham retail recycling study. In all but one case brochures were being sent back for disposal at the end of each season.

The report above notes that i-to-i printed 19.4 million pages of brochures last year - so any initiative to reduce that number is to be applauded.

Battery Facts

We are about to publish a new report on batteries and recycling on the Resource Efficiency KTN website. Several retailers have already started battery recycling collections as a result of the upcoming EU Batteries Directive. Here are a few facts on batteries in the UK:

• The UK currently only collects 3 to 4% of batteries for recycling (Austria collects over 60%)
• 670 million portable batteries were sold in the UK in 2007
• 40% of UK battery sales occur between October and Christmas Day
• Sales of rechargeable batteries are growing at 10% a year
• Around 22,000 tonnes of portable batteries are sent to landfill every year in the UK
• The energy needed to make a battery is 50 times greater than the energy they give out

Batteries Directive - WRAP Trials

WRAP have published the results of their various battery collection trials. The UK currently collects around 3% of portable batteries for recycling. To meet the EU Battery Directive targets we will need to collect 25% by 2012 and 45% by 2016 - so a long way to go.

The WRAP collection trials looked at the following collection methods for batteries:

Kerbside collection
Retail take back
Community drop off
Postal

The results show that on average 7.9 batteries per household were collected from kerbside schemes. Postal collection produced 2.9 batteries per household and the other options produced around 1 battery per household.

In the Belgian BEBAT battery collection scheme schools are an important collection route with 25% of batteries being collected through this route. The Dutch battery collection scheme also collects large volumes through schools - with incentives for kids that participate. There have even been cases of parents complaining because their children have taken perfectly good batteries out of the remote control to get the free battery collection t-shirts. However, the WRAP trials did not look at school collection in the UK.

The Belgian BEBAT experience suggests that the UK can get to 25% battery collection in a short space of time. Belgian collection rates went from 9% to 26% in the first year of operation for BEBAT.