Page 29 from: Recycling International November issue | 2021
BATTERIES
29recyclinginternational.com | November/December | 2021
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growth in this segment is expected.
The institute’s analysis indicates that
the prohibition of primary batteries
would mean scrapping of 70% of
today’s battery powered devices,
resulting in considerable waste.
a ‘misleading’ comParison
Battery stakeholders also insist that pri-
mary batteries cannot be compared to
single use products such as certain plas-
tics where no organised collection and
recycling infrastructure exists. ‘Primary
batteries are energy sources and they
have great impact on a vast number of
essential applications and sectors using
primary batteries,’ Craen and his fellow
signatories state. ‘They are designed to
be used many times in one or even mul-
tiple appliances and, in some cases, for
the entire life of the equipment.
Qualifying primary batteries as ‘single
use products’ is hence misleading.’
Apart from this reservation, EPBA fully
supports the commission’s proposal.
Craen suggests giving the market
three years to adopt the new regula-
tions as transitions take time and do
not always go smoothly.
‘Some people think that expanding
deposit schemes is the golden ticket
to increased collection and recycling: I
don’t think it’s that simple,’ says
Craen. ‘Just because a scheme works
well in one country or area doesn’t
mean it’s a viable approach that can
be copy-and-pasted into other scenar-
ios. Especially not when factoring in
the many different types of batteries
and battery-driven products.’
new times, new questions
Eric Ruyter of Eucobat, the European
association of national collection
schemes for batteries, says ‘the devil
is in the details’. ‘We always strive to
collect more but we can only collect
what is available,’ he points out.
‘What’s the right figure to work with?
This is a matter of great discussion.’
He argues that ‘available for collec-
tion’ can take on various meanings:
some data includes the lifespan, other
data includes repurposing. In some
cases, it is five years before the bat-
teries are recovered for recycling; in
others, it’s 15 years. Li-ion batteries in
the e-mobility segment tend to last
longer than a decade. This presents
unique challenges.
‘We would prefer to differentiate
between EV and light EV batteries,
powering e-bikes, e-scooters etc but
that raises new questions,’ Ruyter
laments. ‘Where does each category
start and end? Can all players in
Europe find a way to agree on this?’
‘We expect the new regulation will
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