OPINION: I’ve spent more than a decade working with batteries in the UK waste system, and in that time one thing has become clear: the way we measure compliance no longer reflects the reality on the ground. We’re facing more fires, more volatile chemistries, and more confusion about who carries the risk. Yet on paper, the UK looks perfectly compliant.
That’s because of the regulations we still use, written back in 2009, reward the wrong kind of evidence. They allow compliance schemes to meet their 45% collection target largely through lead-acid batteries, which are heavy, easy to count and relatively safe to handle. In practice, this means our national statistics are built on a chemistry that barely features in most people’s daily lives. The lithium-ion and alkaline cells driving today’s fire risks aren’t properly represented in the numbers.
This distortion has been acknowledged for years: government guidance and consultations have specifically highlighted the over-reliance on lead-acid evidence in meeting the portable target and the definitional issues that allow it.
A data problem with real-world consequences
According to the National Fire Chiefs Council, fires caused by discarded batteries have risen by more than 70% in the past two years. Phil Clark, NFCC’s Emerging Energy Technologies Lead, recently described the situation as “a disaster waiting to happen.” The London Fire Brigade now attends a lithium-ion blaze almost every day.
Those fires don’t start in spreadsheets, they start in the bins, skips and sorting lines where waste operators, councils and retailers handle the nation’s electronics. Yet these are the very points in the system that receive the least funding from producer fees. When compliance can be achieved using cheap lead-acid evidence, there’s no incentive to direct money toward safe storage, training or specialist packaging for riskier batteries.
It’s a distortion that creates winners and losers. The system allows targets to be met cheaply, often without reflecting where the real risks lie. The burden falls on everyone else: the waste contractors managing fires, the local authorities providing unfunded take-back points and the retailers whose staff have to handle batteries in-store.
A market stuck in old patterns
Most people in the sector recognise the problem, but the market is stuck. Defra knows the regulations are outdated, yet without formal reform, operators have little reason to invest in new infrastructure or data systems. As long as the 45% target can be achieved through protocols and an over reliance on lead acid batteries, rather than real other chemistry recovery, the UK will appear compliant while falling behind.
Meanwhile, the EU Battery Regulations, already active across Europe, is driving investment in chemistry-specific collection and treatment, recycled-content targets and digital battery passports. The UK will have to align eventually, but every year of delay means more fires, more exports and less trust in the data we publish.
What better compliance looks like
At Recycling Lives Services, we’ve chosen to link the evidence we issue to the actual chemistries our producers place on the market: lithium-ion, nickel-metal hydride, alkaline and lead-acid. It’s not an easy path; it’s more complex and expensive than the current model. But it gives producers and regulators a clear view of what’s really happening and funds the right level of safety.
The result is simple: when you collect, process and issue evidence on batteries by chemistry, you prevent volatile batteries being stored together for extended periods of time, which reduces fire risk, and you make it possible to recover more cobalt, nickel and lithium amongst other rare earth materials, crucial to manufacturing. That’s what genuine battery compliance should look like. Some producers are already moving in that direction. Hisense UK, for example, recently renewed its long-term compliance partnership with Recycling Lives Services on the strength of better data and safety standards, proof that producers recognise the value of real evidence when they see it.
Who pays – and who should
We often talk about “producer responsibility,” but at the moment the cost currently falls unevenly across the chain. Waste operators are absorbing the cost of fires and insurance. Councils are storing mixed batteries without support. Retailers are providing take-back points with no funding for safe containment.
Reform could change that. If evidence was linked to real chemistries and collection methods, funding would flow to where the risk actually sits. Those managing volatile materials would have the resources to do it safely, and compliance costs would reflect real-world effort instead of regulatory loopholes.
The time to act
International E-Waste Day, today (14 October 2025), takes “Safe Collection and Handling” as its theme this year. It’s a fitting moment to admit that our current battery regulations aren’t built for the batteries we use today.
Reform will take time, but the principles are clear: accurate data, investment in collection and treatment, and safety first.
As an industry, we don’t need to wait for new legislation to start acting on those priorities. Every producer that pushes for a chemistry-specific approach to their obligations, every compliance scheme that chooses to implement it, every operator that handles batteries responsibly and greater public awareness – all of these steps move us closer to a system that reflects the real risks we face.
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