UK's First Domestic Recycling Plant Opens

G&P Batteries has opened Britain’s first household battery recycling plant in the English Midlands. The US$481,000 plant can process up to 1,500 tons of waste alkaline and zinc carbon batteries each year.

The plant will recover steel and black mass – a mixture of zinc, manganese and carbon. Black mass can be processed into zinc and manganese compounds or it can be refined into metal. The company will initially sell the black mass in Europe.

According to G&P, the U.K. generates 30,000 tons of domestic battery waste each year and less than 2% is collected for recycling. In particular the more popular household batteries containing alkaline and zinc carbon chemistries have a poor recycling rate. Most end up in landfills.

New European legislation, expected by mid-2006, will require Britain to treat 25% of waste portable batteries by 2012.