Making battery recycling containers
July 22, 2013 at 3:41 PM
H&O Plastics are involved in many aspects of the plastics industry, beyond the pure manufacturing of plastic buckets and containers. As we are more of a bespoke business, we are able to accept commissions that are much more narrow in their focus, developing injection moulded tooling that enables our company to produce plastics of a particular size and usage.
A recent example is a brand new container for battery recycling. You may have noticed recycling containers in your local supermarket, for collecting old batteries. Well, it might not be in the wider public knowledge, but new EU legislation compels any retailer of batteries to position a recycling point for household batteries within their store.
Retail outlets began to comply with this legislation by using a simple desktop container, with a hole in the lid, for the public to dispose of their batteries. However, H&O became involved with a major recycling company in a project to design something much more interesting – something that would be immediately recognised by the general public, and its function clearly understood. Working alongside other manufacturers, H&O was able to create a safe and practical recycling container that actually looks like a large battery, which is what you might have seen on retail counters throughout the UK, as well as the larger battery collection drum that H&O developed for the bigger supermarkets.
We very much enjoyed the process of collaborating on the drum for these battery recycling bins. However, batteries are also classed as hazardous and therefore, in order to effectively transport and dispose of the discarded batteries, the recycling container had to contain within it a UN-certified cap, that could secure it effectively. H&O commissioned the moulding tool that produced the required battery cap that could be secured safely to each of those containers.
We are extremely pleased with the success of our engineering, happy in the knowledge there is now a piece of H&O ingenuity in every supermarket in the land!
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RL Plastics Ltd | Britannia House | Dock Road | Birkenhead | CH41 1DF
T: 0151 639 0002 | F: 0151 639 0006 | E: sales@ho-plastics.co.uk
