Recycle Fluorescent Lighting At The Battlefield HRC

Recent media has generated enquiries about the safe disposal of low energy light bulbs.  Low energy light bulbs are the long florescent tubes that contain mercury and are deemed to be hazardous waste.  The Council recommends that low energy light bulbs (a.k.a. compact fluorescent lighting or C.F.L.’s) are taken for recycling at Battlefield Household Waste & Recycling Center on the Enterprise Park on Vanguard Way.  They should not be put in your refuse and they cannot be recycled through any of Shrewsbury & Atcham’s collection schemes.

We would request that they are kept out of the refuse as they may present a safety risk in landfill.  Households are technically exempt from the Hazardous Waste Regulations, so cannot be prosecuted for binning them, but it’s environmentally preferable and safer for everyone to take them to Battlefield.

Better still at Battlefield they can be sent for recycling!  The mercury within the bulbs can be safely recovered and the glass gets recycled. They can't go in the normal glass recycling though because they're Phosphor coated glass, so please don’t place them in your green box; take them to Battlefield instead.

CFL's last around 10 times longer than traditional bulbs and use only one-fifth of the electricity, thus over their lifetime they prevent the emissions of much more mercury than they cause.  Replacing a single GLS with a low energy lightbulb can save a householder up to £9 per year on electricity bills.  If everyone in the UK replaced just one light bulb with a CFL it could save enough electricity to close an entire coal-fired (mercury emitting) power station down!

Battlefield Household Waste & Recycling Centre, Battlefield Enterprise Park, Vanguard Way, Harlescott, Shrewsbury.
Tel. 08456 789 009
email: waste@shropshire-cc.gov.uk

James Thompson, Recycling & Sustainability Officer.
Tel. 01743 281155 
email: Recycling@shrewsbury.gov.uk