What's on - The Mall Luton to Trial Crucial Battery Recycling Initiative

19 March, 2010

The Mall Luton is set to become one of the first shopping centres in the UK to trial an end-of-life battery recycling scheme for shoppers. Teaming up with leading battery manufacturer Varta and recycling provider BatteryBack, it will provide a collection point in the centre for visitors to dispose of their old batteries from the 1st February. The trial has been designed to coincide with the UK's 1st February launch of the Batteries Directive, a new EU-wide ruling that imposes strict targets on the manufacturing, collection and recycling of batteries.

The Batteries Directive aims to cut down on the 600 million waste batteries that end up in landfill each year, and to help consumers play their part in Luton, an end-of-life battery collection point will be placed in The Mall shopping centre. To encourage take up of the scheme, which will be rolled out in Malls across the UK if successful, Varta will be providing free batteries to the first 1,000 people who visit the centre to recycle their old ones.

Every year, the average UK household disposes of more than 21 batteries as part of their general waste. This translates to over 22 tonnes of waste batteries sent to landfill annually. With experts predicting that the UK will run out of landfill space in the next few years, increasing battery recycling rates is a crucial way of trying to reverse this trend.

Lavinia Holland, Marketing Manager at The Mall Luton is keen to stress the importance of the scheme: "The UK is lagging behind its European neighbours with regards to battery recycling. The key to improving recycling rates here is making sure households have easily accessible drop-off points, so that's why we will be placing highly visible collection points throughout the centre. Our shoppers in Luton have always been very supportive of our recycling campaigns in the past, and I'm sure we will have the same success this time around."

The batteries recycling trial forms part of The Mall's EnviroMall initiative, a commitment to reducing the impact of its shopping centres on the environment. It comes on the back of the Come Home for Christmas campaign, which helped raise over £10,000 for the charity Missing People by recycling old mobile phones. The scheme is also being supported by BatteryBack, one of the largest suppliers of collection and recycling for the coming directive.

Ends

Notes to Editors:

About The Mall
The Mall is the UK's leading community shopping centre brand. We own 19 Malls located at the heart of local communities across the country. Home to over 1,800 retail units, our Malls cover 7.3 million sq ft and attract 4 million shoppers every week of the year.
The Mall locations: Aberdeen, Barnsley, Blackburn, Bristol, Camberley, Falkirk, Gloucester, Ilford, Luton, Maidstone, Middlesbrough, Norwich, Preston, Romford, Southampton, Sutton Coldfield, Uxbridge, Walthamstow and Wood Green.

www.themall.co.uk - shopping as it should be...

About Varta
Varta, part of Spectrum Brands, is a leading manufacturer of portable batteries, delivering consumer batteries that offer flexibility and independence. As one of the biggest manufacturers in Europe, Varta holds the number one position in a number of major European markets.
For further company and product information, please visit http://www.varta-consumer.co.uk

About BatteryBack
BatteryBack was initially created in the summer of 2008 in preparation for the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations. The regulations are a response to a European Directive that states that 25 per cent of all batteries placed on the market must be recycled by 2012, rising to 45 per cent by 2016. BatteryBack has established over 2000 battery collection points with a target of 30,000 sites by the end of 2010 and over 60,000 by the end of 2012. They are committed to being the nation's favourite battery recycler

For further company and product information, please visit www.batteryback.co.uk

This press release has been written and distributed by Flowing Ink. For more information or high resolution images contact Danielle Tarren at Danielle@flowingink.co.uk.

www.flowingink.co.uk

Ref: TMLMR/016

« Back to What's On