‘Ban landfilling of batteries’, says European battery chief

Speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday (December 11), the president, Bertrand Schutz, expressed disappointment with the UK's progress towards transposing the EU Batteries Directive and introducing a collection system. And, he described the UK as being “behind” other EU member states.

EBRA, which was established in 1998, is based in Brussels, Belgium and has 18 members, including the West Midlands battery recycling firm G&P Batteries, and nine associate members, including Leeds-based compliance scheme operator Wastecare.

With regulations for the UK's battery collection and recycling system now not expected to come into effect until 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story), the president said a ban on batteries to landfill next year would be key to increasing the UK's chances of reaching the target of collecting 25% of waste batteries by 2012.

“The first easy thing to do is forbid the landfilling, you have controlled landfill so it should be easy,” Mr Schutz claimed. “We have to add those volumes to your statistics.”

Calling for a “quick regulation” to be introduced, he said: “That should be done to oblige everybody involved in waste to recycling them – the people who want to collect them have the capacity.”

Mr Schutz claimed that when the UK's collection system was introduced, it could be successful but “only if it starts with bigger volumes”, and had three, rather than two years, to work towards its targets.

However, he warned that the 2012 goal “will be very difficult to reach it if nothing happens in 2009”.

Data

Despite the uncertainty that still surrounds the full details of the UK system, with a consultation on draft regulations for battery collection and recycling yet to be launched, details of the data system that will be used have emerged.

Jeff Cooper, producer responsibility policy manager at the Environment Agency, spoke this week about the National Packaging Waste Database, which is currently being enhanced: “The system will be updated to be used for batteries in the near future,” he said. 

Compliance

At the same time, the government has already outlined its plans for a multiple compliance scheme system to be used for battery producers to meet their obligations (see letsrecycle.com story)

And, Mr Schutz was positive about this approach, citing the competitive benefits it could offer.

But, he stressed that the system would be boosted by a unified public awareness campaign, explaining that “the nice thing is to have a common message with advertising – if you have that then you will be the first country to have that.”

France

He contrasted the UK's progress with that of France, where his company Citron SA operates battery recycling facilities, and batteries have been collected nationwide since 1999.

Mr Schutz described France as “a bit special”, with the country having increased its collection rate from 10% to 30% over the past five years, based on a system where between 1/2 and 2/3 of batteries are collected via retailers.

But, he added – as of October 15 2008 – only nine out of 27 EU member states had fully transposed the Directive, a process that was expected to be completed on September 26.

Citron

In his role as vice-president of Citron SA, Mr Schutz was involved in setting up the Citron Recycle scheme with Hampshire-based Loddon Recycling in June 2008 (see letsrecycle.com story).

That service involves batteries collected in the UK being transported to Citron's recycling facility at Le Havre in the North of France for reprocessing.

And, while the UK currently has few battery reprocessing facilities, Mr Schutz said that Citron SA could look to build facilities here, but “only when the market is there”