Dubai-based sustainable and technology-driven home maintenance specialist Hitches & Glitches (H&G), part of the Farnek Group, has launched a battery recycling initiative for its residential customers, that have existing maintenance contracts, to celebrate World Environment Day, which takes place on Friday 5 June.

The aim of the programme is to encourage consumers to be more environmentally friendly, by simply giving their used batteries to Hitches & Glitches for recycling.

To support their customers, Hitches & Glitches’ maintenance technicians will collect alkaline batteries & lithium ion & nickel cadmium batteries which are the most common type of batteries found in household waste.

Kelvin Vargheese, Director of H&G said, “We will provide our customers with branded containers, so that they can deposit small used batteries which will be collected during our next scheduled visit.

“The batteries will then be delivered to our partners in this programmeEnviroserve, which is one of the largest e-waste recycling companies in the world, where the batteries will be processed and diverted from landfill.

“Although there are battery collection and recycling initiatives carried out by commercial organisations, diverting batteries from normal household waste, is a major challenge in Dubai.

“However, through this project Hitches & Glitches intends to close that gap by supporting our customers, managing this hazardous waste and encouraging our customers to more environmentally friendly.”

Batteries contain toxic chemicals such as cadmium, lead, lithium, even sulfuric acid. If batteries end up in a landfill, these pollutants can easily leak out into the environment and contaminate groundwater, damage fragile ecosystems, and even make their way into the food chain.

“That is particularly appropriate this year, as the theme for World Environment Day 2020 is biodiversity,” commented Vargheese.

Overall, the benefits of recycling batteries are clear, apart from saving natural resources and energy, it reduces pollution, reduces the amount of landfill and of course, reduces carbon emissions.

“Recycled batteries produce around 10 – 20% less carbon emissions than new ones, which is significant when you think about the millions of batteries that are thrown away by consumers in Dubai every year,” added Vargheese.