Get ready for new EU battery directive requirements

The newly updated European Union environmental legislation for batteries, Directive 2006/66, which establishes environmental requirements for batteries and accumulators, was published in the EU's Official Journal on September 26, 2006. The new law states that European Union member states must implement this directive into their respective national laws within two years, that is, by September 26, 2008. The directive applies to all batteries and accumulators put on the market within the EU including automotive, industrial, and portable batteries. This directive replaces Directive 91/157 which was originally implemented in 1991.

The goal of the directive is to harmonize member states' legislation to minimize the negative impact of batteries and accumulators on the environment. To accomplish this goal, the directive restricts the sale of batteries and accumulators that contain mercury (Hg) or cadmium (Cd) (with some exceptions) and promotes a high level of collection and recycling. These collection and recycling efforts will reduce both air emissions from waste incineration and metallic pollutants in landfills. In turn, this will also promote the recovery of valuable metals (cobalt, nickel, silver) through battery and accumulator collection and recycling. The directive sets specific targets for the member state collection rates of 25% by 2012, and 45% by 2016.

Key requirements must be met

For producers, the key requirements of the directive are outlined as follows:

• Ban the sale of batteries and accumulators containing more than 0.0005% Hg or 0.002% Cd — exceptions include where they are used in emergency and alarm systems, and cordless power tools
• Producers must register with member states and are responsible for take back of used batteries from consumers; member states are responsible for ensuring that appropriate collection schemes are in place
• Producers are responsible for labeling batteries and accumulators with the "crossed-out wheeled bin" symbol; batteries with more than 0.0005% HG, 0.002% Cd, or 0.004% lead (Pb) will also include the chemical symbols Hg, Cd, or Pb as appropriate
• Producers are responsible for including capacity labeling on the battery/accumulator
• Producers are required to design products so that batteries and accumulators can be easily removed in the reclamation process

The producer registration, take-back, and financial responsibilities closely parallel those outlined in the EU WEEE directive. This is meant to leverage existing registration and collective/recycling schemes, and provide additional economies of scale and operating efficiencies. Regarding compliance, the Battery directive does provide some flexibility for exempting small producers (relative to the size of the market in the member state) as long as this would not interfere with the effective functioning of established collection and recycling schemes.

The requirement to provide the end-user visibility to battery/accumulator capacity is to encourage the use of longer-lasting batteries. This will then reduce the total volume of batteries required and the downstream collection and recycling volume. The detailed rules for implementing this requirement including the harmonized method for determining capacity and appropriate use, will be determined no later than March 26, 2009. Producers will then have six months (i.e. by September 26, 2009) to implement this capacity labeling requirement.

The requirement to design products for easy removal of batteries continues the Eco-design life-cycle thinking goal of the WEEE directive for improving product design to both "prevent WEEE" and to increase product recoverability, reusability, and recyclability. Prevent WEEE refers to the concept that with eco-friendly designs, products will have advantages for such factors as energy efficiency and/or longer service life. For example, a good eco-friendly designed refrigerator might incorporate a new compressor that lasts twice as long as a conventional design. This means the eco-designed refrigerator would last twice as long and reduce WEEE by a factor of two. Another example is an eco-friendly product that offers reduced power consumption compared to a conventional design. The new eco-design might need only one battery for a given service life, while the conventional design would require two batteries (and therefore introduce additional "WEEE", in this case, an additional battery).

As originally intended in the WEEE directive, member states were to consider providing incentives (e.g. by lower tax or fee structures) to producers of eco-friendly designs. However, several countries have dropped the Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR) concept out of their implementation of the WEEE directive, thus making the eco-design aspect of the WEEE directive less effective.

The eco-design and additional requirements, such as the definition of battery capacity, will continue detailed definition during member states implementation of this directive over the next two years. During the process, producers of batteries/accumulators, and electronic and electrical equipment that use batteries/accumulators in their designs, should remain diligent and continue to monitor the implementation of the directive to ensure compliance.

Allan Miller, principal consulant, www.prtm.com can be reached at amiller@prtm.com.

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