20 Sep 2007, 17:46
Aha! I contacted my local council enviromental officer and got this in reply.
The larger Sainsbury’s supermarket stores have recently introduced a FREEPOST battery recycling scheme for type D, C, AA, AAA, 9V and button batteries. You can collect a freepost envelope from the stores and post them away for recycling. If the envelopes are not located at or near the customer service desk, they’ll be further in the store at the battery section.
IKEA also take back their own brand of batteries for recycling.
The European Union has agreed the text of a law that will make recycling of batteries obligatory from 2008, so we are likely to see more options for recycling in the future. The directive will ban most batteries with more than a trace of the toxic chemicals cadmium or mercury. And it says that a quarter of all used batteries must be collected by 2012 - rising to 45% by 2016 - and that at least half of them must be recycled.
Get down to Sainsburys. I can use digi's with no guilty feeling.