Ayrshire to host UK's first battery recycling plant

The UK's first dedicated battery recycling plant is being set up in Ayrshire and will have the potential to process the country's entire battery waste.

A new recycling plant in Ayrshire will be able to process up to 20,000 tonnes of used batteries each year

The new centre, at Kilwinning, will be able to handle 20,000 tonnes of batteries each year.

It means the UK could potentially stop shipping used batteries abroad, cutting the cost and environmental footprint of dealing with spent batteries.

A wide range of metals are used in batteries. Mercury, lead and cadmium are considered the most problematic to dispose of and batteries made with these are classified as hazardous waste.

When batteries end up in landfill the metals can leach out and contaminate the surrounding ground, while burning them pollutes the air.

Equipment costing more than £300,000 will be installed at the Scottish site in the next few weeks, allowing sorting and shredding work to begin in November.

Resource-efficiency specialist Ecosurety and the UK arm of international recycling solutions firm Belmont Trading are behind the scheme.

Damian Lambkin, head of innovation at Ecosurety, said: “This partnership means the UK could potentially stop sending batteries abroad for recycling, reducing the additional environmental impacts of shipping tens of thousands of tonnes of potentially hazardous waste across the sea to northern Europe every year.

“It is also a big win for producers, who will not have to cover the additional cost burdens of sending spent batteries overseas.

“This is proof that the UK waste and recycling industry can find its own innovative solutions to our waste resourcing issues through partnership working.”

Recycling and sustainability advisers have welcomed the new plant.

A spokeswoman for Zero Waste Scotland said: “We know that by keeping products and materials in use for longer, and by recycling them at end of life, we can keep them out of landfill and therefore help the environment.

“But what this news shows is that by recycling effectively we can also generate investment and create new jobs, which is great news for Scotland.

“As a nation we are working towards ambitious targets on recycling: with 70 per cent of waste recycled or prepared for re-use and no more than five per cent of all waste to go to landfill by 2025.

“The news that we’ll soon be able to reprocess batteries on our own shores will help us move closer towards that vision, as well as generating benefits for both our economy and the environment.”

Since 2010 any high street or online retailer selling more than 32kg of batteries a year, the equivalent of one four-pack of AA batteries a day, must provide recycling bins or facilities to allow them to be returned for proper disposal.

But official figures show the UK fell just short of its 2016 collection target – for 45 per cent of portable batteries sold to be recovered.