Recycle your old batteries!!!

Early Childhood Ireland to Launch a Recycling Campaign  

 Early Childhood Ireland has joined forces with The European Recycling Platform (ERP), Ireland’s only pan-European compliance scheme for electrical and electronic waste and waste battery recycling, to highlight the importance of recycling in the early years sector and launch a recycling campaign.

Early Childhood Ireland  and ERP are giving pre –school children the opportunity to learn about the importance of recycling, with the aid of a fun recycling pack including  activity programmes and an introduction to the ERP Captain Recycle Team! 

Children and parents will be encouraged to bring in their old used batteries from home to recycle through recycling boxes in preschool and childcare services.

Household batteries like watches or computer games, contain heavy metals which can be harmful to the environment. If we put them in with our household refuse they will go to landfill and release substances such as nickel, cadmium or lead.Therefore it’s important that these batteries are recycled and disposed of safely.

The campaign will be launched during the week starting 22^nd April which is also Earth Day and will initially be rolled out to Early Childhood Ireland member services in Dublin, Monaghan, Kerry, Longford, Cavan, Meath, Louth and Clare.

Joint battery collection doubles to hit 2 tonne!

Get your batteries collected as competition heats up!

The joint ERP and Early Childhood Ireland joint battery recycling campaign has hit 2 tonne, equating to 91,040 batteries*. The average collection weight is 29kgs per school – the equivalent of 1,200 AA batteries. Limerick has taken the lead as the greenest county for pre-school battery recycling, highlighting the positive effect the campaign is having encouraging parents and pre-schoolers to recycle their batteries right across the country.

Speaking about the campaign, Yvonne Holmes, Head of Corporate Communications, ERP, said, “We are reminding all ECI pre-schools to call the ERP Operations team on 0818 332 757 , and return the battery boxes to be in with a chance to win a fun recycling party.”

The competition closes on the 31st May and each participating facility will be in with a chance to win an ERP Recycling Party with face painters, balloon modellers and more, to take place in June. They will also win a trophy and a book voucher to the value of €250. There is still an opportunity for facilities to register so do not miss out!

This competition is part of an on-going commitment from ERP and Early Childhood Ireland to put recycling and sustainability at the heart of the pre-school educational agenda and reduce the 90% of pre-school sites that have never before recycled. The campaign ensures the message that recycling batteries is good for the environment is heard. Disposing of batteries in general waste is harmful to the environment causing soil and water pollution. It also means the potential resource, which could be recycled, is lost.  

The battery collection competition remains open to childcare facilities in Fingal, Monaghan, Cavan, Clare, Limerick, Kerry, Louth and Meath. For more information, please log on to www.earlychildhoodireland.ie/ERP.
*Based on the weight of an AA battery