The Baa-ttery Campaign

A battery recycling campaign with a difference has been launched in primary schools across Cumbria to encourage more battery recycling, with a sheep as its mascot. A staggering 3.2 million batteries are discarded in Cumbrian waste each year, which is equal to the weight of over 3650 Herdwick sheep!

Batteries should never be disposed of in regular waste or recycling bins. When damaged during the transportation or treatment process, they have the potential to explode or ignite, which can lead to fires and pose serious risks to personal safety.

The baa-ttery campaign is supported by Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness Councils and seeks to raise awareness of the issue and promote the recycling of used batteries.

Renewi has partnered with Valpak Limited to issue battery boxes to the schools in order to raise awareness of the importance of battery recycling encouraging children to become superheroes.

Hayley Slack, Community Education Liaison Officer for Renewi, explained: “Most people don’t think anything of putting a few batteries in the bin, not realising the dangers or even that they should be recycled. On average, every person throws away 6.5 batteries each year which equals over 3.2 million batteries in Cumbria alone.”

“3.2 million is a huge amount of batteries but unless you can visualise the scale of the problem it means nothing. 3.2 million batteries equal the weight of over 3650 Herdwick sheep. What is more Cumbrian than a sheep to represent the scale of our problem!”

Batteries are commonly found in various household items including toys, phones and electronic equipment.

The campaign has been designed to be appealing to children, featuring a sheep as the mascot for the baa-ttery campaign. The ‘baa-ttery boxes’ are available to all businesses and organisations across Cumbria, if you would like to support the campaign you can order a ‘baa-ttery box’ by visiting recycle-more.co.uk.”

By highlighting the importance of battery recycling, Renewi aims to increase the number of battery recycling points across Cumbria and make it more convenient to recycle household batteries and reduce the environmental impact of battery waste.