Sustainable Manufacturing Portal

Batteries and Accumulators

The EC Batteries and Accumulators and Waste Batteries and Accumulators Directive was published in September 2006 with the objective to reduce environmental impacts from manufacturing and disposal of batteries. This directive was imposed into the UK law through the Batteries and Accumulators (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2008 and the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009.

This directive replaced the previous Batteries Directive (91/157/EEC) that only covers a limited range of batteries placed on the market and does not provide a framework to facilitate the end-of-life collection and recycling.

The key features of this directive include:-

Material restrictions on the use of mercury and cadmium in batteries;
Labelling and marking requirements to assist recycling process and declare level of mercury, cadmium or lead;
Design requirements for certain appliances that waste batteries must be able to be removed for recycling;
Prohibition of non-compliant batteries from the EU market;
Producer responsiblity enhancement where battery producers will have to fund the collection, treatment and recycling of waste batteries;
Framework in waste batteries collection and recycling that involves consumers, distributors and waste treatment operator to reduce disposal of battery waste at landfill.