Responding to the vote of the full European Parliament yesterday in the first reading of the replacement Batteries and Accumulators Directive, the Commission welcomed the priority given to making producers contribute to the collection of all battery types.
But, the Commission said it disagreed with some of the Parliament's 87 amendments to the original proposals for the directive.
The Directive, proposed by the Commission last November (see letsrecycle.com story), seeks to prevent spent batteries from ending up in landfills and incinerators. It also aims to create a Europe-wide framework for national battery collection and recycling schemes.
Environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom said: “I welcome this fast reaction from the European Parliament. It reaffirms the high priority that the EU gives to making sure that batteries and accumulators no longer pollute the environment when they become waste.”
But she added: “However, I maintain that our original proposal can achieve the environmental objectives we share with Parliament.”
Targets
In particular, the Commission criticised amendments calling for a different collection target for portable batteries and a ban on lead and cadmium. It said these amendments were not supported by the results of the Directive's Extended Impact Assessment.
The Parliament wants a collection target for household batteries corresponding to 50% of the annual sales as of two years ago. However, the Commission's original proposal was for a more general collection target for batteries of 160 grams for every inhabitant each year, and an 80% target for nickel-cadmium batteries.
The Commission said its proposals took account of the “unpredictable life span” of batteries and the fact that “consumers often hoard them before bringing them to a collection point, which makes it difficult to link battery collection to annual sales.”
Heavy metals
Another area of disagreement was in the Parliament's wish extend a ban on sales of all batteries or accumulators containing more than 5 parts per million of mercury by weight to include those containing 40ppm of lead or 20ppm of cadmium.
The Commission, however, said it had proposed a closed-loop system that would mean all batteries be collected and recycled containing these contaminants, with the metals re-introduced into the economic cycle.
It said the directive's impact assessment showed that this measure, as well as existing legislation such as the End of Life Vehicles Directive, would provide an equivalent level of environmental protection to the outright ban, but at a lower cost.
Timetable
Following yesterday's vote by the European Parliament, the Commission will now revise its proposal before seeking a common position on which the European Parliament will need to reach agreement with the Council of Ministers.
The agreement of a common position will have to wait for the European elections in June, but once the Directive is agreed, the UK will have 18 months to implement the regulations into national law.
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