Batteries Directive Review: Eucobat priorities and positions
The evaluation of the current Battery Directive has been completed, and will soon be followed by an impact assessment of the proposed measures. The compliance organizations, represented by Eucobat, that are realizing the extended producer responsibility for the waste batteries, by organizing the collection, recycling, reporting and financing, would like to highlight hereby the main issues related to the existing legislation.
- Collection Target
- Batteries from electrified vehicles
- Competition in compliance
- Recycling
- The Visible Environmental Fee
Following other topics require specific attention:
- the “producer” definition, which should be aligned with the WEEE Directive,
- the classification of the batteries in different categories,
- the collection responsibilities for the retailers and the municipalities,
- the communication and sensibilisation, of which the requirements cannot be defined in a harmonized way for all countries,
- the removal of batteries from WEEE,
- the information requirements towards national producers, in order to allow them to report correctly to the compliance organizations and the member states, and
- the marking of battery packs and the cells contained, in order to allow correct sorting and recycling,
- the relation with other EPR regulations, as batteries cannot be considered as components, sub- assemblies, accessories or consumables of (W)EEE or (end-of life) vehicles, and should be governed by the Batteries Directive.