Ireland’s Call to Get Charged Up for LauraLynn@Home
March 9, 2016
Ireland has one big challenge this year and WEEE Ireland need your help to achieve this!
Ireland is 35 MILLION batteries away from smashing the 2016 recycling target set by the EU, which will prove that we are recycling over 45% of batteries placed on the market. Not only that, but every battery that is collected for recycling this year goes towards a monetary donation for the exceptional LauraLynn@HOME service that is provided by LauraLynn, Ireland’s Children’s Hospice.
Ireland’s battery recycling stats in numbers:
570 tonnes (the equivalent of 28,500,000 AA batteries) of waste batteries were collected by WEEE Ireland in 2015 for recycling. This is over 41 tonnes more batteries collected for recycling than in 2014. If we can increase what we recycled in 2015 by an additional 7 MILLION batteries, then Ireland will be able to celebrate reaching the EU target at the end of the year.
This is a challenge that everyone can help with, even Bosco, who is the official ambassador for this campaign! If every household in Ireland simply collects 30 waste batteries for recycling rather than putting them in the rubbish bin. So get out canvassing for waste batteries from your family, friends and neighbours and collect as many waste batteries as you can for recycling.
Collected batteries can simply be brought back to any retailers, local supermarkets, your schools or local civic amenity site – just look out for the special blue WEEE Ireland battery boxes and drop your batteries off!
As a nation, in only 10 short years we have taken battery recycling from less than 5% to almost 40% compared to the amount that are sold in Ireland. The challenge is on everyone to take the time to find additional waste batteries and ensure they don’t go in the rubbish bin to reach the 45% target this year. With over 100 batteries currently in use or being hoarded in each Irish home, WEEE Ireland is asking everyone to check drawers, attics and garden sheds for any waste batteries and recycle them responsibly.
An extra special challenge for LauraLynn@home:
Every battery collected for recycling by WEEE Ireland goes towards a monetary donation for LauraLynn, Ireland’s Children’s Hospice. At Christmas last year the donation figure from WEEE Ireland to LauraLynn, Ireland’s Children’s Hospice had reached the €185,000 mark. After all the great work by Irish recyclers a further €50,000 was donated at the start of this year. WEEE Ireland are really hoping that collectively, Irish people will make one final effort this year to find any waste batteries lying around their homes and sheds in order to reach our target. If this happens, WEEE Ireland have pledged to top up the existing donation to hit the €250,000 mark!
The support received from WEEE Ireland has been invaluable for LauraLynn Ireland’s Children’s Hospice, and in particular for its LauraLynn@HOME programme, which commenced in 2014. LauraLynn@HOME is the outreach programme provided by LauraLynn, which brings the hospice care into the comfort of the child’s own home, providing not only the specialist nursing care that the children urgently need, but also offering a range of other therapeutic interventions for the children, as well as emotional and practical supports for the whole family. To date LauraLynn@HOME has provided support to 68 families, and the funding received from WEEE goes a long way in helping towards the running costs of this vital service.
Speaking about the task at hand for 2016, WEEE Ireland CEO Leo Donovan said,” This year we really wanted to drive home the double meaning for collecting batteries in Ireland over the next 12 months. Not alone are the people of Ireland helping to hit our EU target for 2016, but are also directly helping to provide much needed care to families of children with life limiting conditions. It is vitally important to support the amazing service that is LauraLynn@HOME. Every battery counts when it comes to providing funding for this special service. We could not have done this without the support of Irish recyclers and we hope that together this year we can bring battery recycling to a new level of success.”
Speaking about the campaign, The LauraLynn@HOME team said, “We are so grateful for the continuing support of WEEE Ireland through their battery recycling campaign – this wonderful and easy way in which every person in Ireland can help the environment, while also supporting LauraLynn, Ireland’s Children’s Hospice. This support is vital in our LauraLynn@HOME programme – which enables us to help families to care for their sick child at home, and allows parents to be just “Mum & Dad” for a while rather than full-time carers. We want to grow this service and bring it into more communities – and every battery that gets recycled in the WEEE Ireland blue boxes in shops in your community, will help us to do that.”
Top tips for recycling batteries this year:
• Get into the swing of a spring clean and begin the search for waste batteries in your home
• Pop into you local retailer to pick up your own FREE personal My Battery Box
• Pop all your waste batteries into the blue battery box and drop back to your local retailer or school once full
For more information on WEEE Ireland then log on to www.weeeireland.ie
-ENDS-
For further information please contact:
Grace O’Reilly @ Insight Consultants
01 – 2939977 / 086 1968831
grace@insightconsultants.ie
Notes to Editors:
About LauraLynn@HOME
There are estimated to be 3,840 children in Ireland with life-limiting conditions and tragically about 380 of these children die each year. Most parents want to be able to care for their sick child at home, and for this reason LauraLynn set up LauraLynn@HOME – an outreach programme which brings our hospice care into the comfort of the child’s own home. LauraLynn@HOME not only provides the high standard nursing care that the children urgently need, but also offers a range of holistic therapies include play and music therapy, massage therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology and bereavement support. Our approach to care focuses on enhancing the quality of life for the whole family – by creating an environment where the child can be a child rather than a patient, where siblings get supported too, and where parents can have a break from being full-time carers – have some fun playing with their sick child, run errands, spend time with other siblings, or just have a rest – time to simply be “Mum & Dad” for a while. LauraLynn@HOME has been operating since 2014 in Dublin and some of the surrounding counties, and one of our major plans in 2016 is to begin fundraising to expand this programme – initially to meet the needs of all families in the areas in which it currently operates, and ultimately to bring the service nationwide.
For more information please log onto: https://lauralynn.ie