Sainsbury’s mobile phone charger recycling initiative that is running durng August is part of their ‘Make The Difference Days’ scheme. Sainsbury’s uses this to bring its corporate responsibility “values” to customers by means of employees. The current campaign was the brainchild of Sainsbury’s staff.
Sainsbury’s has accepted the initiative is short term but they will review its success with the possibility of running it again, perhaps for a longer period.
Not only are Sainsbury’s working with Valpak on the campaign, but they are also in partnership with the “We Are What We Do” organisation, who they worked with previously in 2007 on its ‘I Am Not a Plastic Bag’ initiative.
“We Are What We Do” supervised the creative and strategic development of in-store communications on the charger campaign and they are also providing support through a website that enables Sainsbury’s customers to follow the progress of the collection.
Valpak is also in partnership with Sainsbury’s on their battery compliance scheme and assists the supermarket to meet its retailer obligations under the battery regulations. Last October, Sainsbury’s revealed plans to work with both Valpak and Recolight the lamp recycling company on its scheme for joint collection of waste batteries and low energy light bulbs, the first UK retailer to do so.
Sainsbury’s say they have collected over 250,000 batteries since the obligation to offer in-store takeback took effect last February. They believe this is more than any other supermarket.