LIMERICK City councillors have adopted a call to ban one-use batteries in favour of rechargeable ones.
At last week’s Metropolitan District meeting of Limerick City and County Council, City North councillor John Gilligan (Ind) asked the council executive to ask Environment Minister Richard Bruton to impose a ban on single-use domestic batteries and replace them with rechargeable ones.
“This can work. If you look at the plastic bag charge and what happened with that. We used to have plastic bags littering every street, every dual carriageway and now people bring their own bags or buy the reusable ones,” he told the meeting.
“Thousands of batteries will be put in the bin over Christmas and there is a solution to the problem but it won’t be brought in by the people who manufacture batteries. We use rechargeable batteries in shavers and electric toothbrushes – we have the technology to have rechargeable batteries for everything”.
Cllr John Loftus (Ind) said he supported the Cllr Gilligan’s call.
“Contents of batteries are highly polluting. A lot of shops have a box for disposing of them but they’re not very visible. And it would save people a lot of money,” he said.
Members unanimously supported motion and a letter will now be sent to the Minister.
