Dive summary:

• The U.K. has reached the first EU-wide mandated battery collection target for 2012 with 27.7% collection.
• Under the new Batteries Directive, countries in the E.U. are required to collect and recycle 25% of all single use batteries this year; in 2015, the number will rise to 45%.
• The U.K. performed particularly well in the first two quarters of last year, recycling 32% of batteries but slowed down for some reason towards the end of the year.

From the article:

Data published by the Environment Agency in September 2012 showed that the UK had achieved a collection rate of around 32% for the first two quarters of the year, with around 6,049 tonnes of waste portable batteries collected by compliance schemes for recycling (see letsrecycle.com story).

And, despite collections slowing down at the end of the year, with 2,120 tonnes of waste portable batteries collected between October and December, compared to the 3,225 tonnes collected between January and March, the target was still comfortably met. ...