From today all shops selling over 32kg of batteries in a year have to provide recycling points under new laws for people to drop off their old batteries.

The new recycling schemes have been put into place to help the UK hit recycling targets put in place by the EU. At the moment only 3% of batteries are being recycled it is hoped that the new laws will bring this figure up to 10% by the end of the year.

If recycling targets are not hit then the UK government could face fines of millions of pounds, these fines will be passed to battery manufacturers which in time will raise the price of batteries to consumers.

It’s hoped that consumers will take all their old batteries to points to drop them off for recycling however if people are not aware of the new laws then the recycling effort could fail straight away.

The new recycling schemes are also expected to cost battery manufacturers around £3 million per year.