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EU Directive to ban Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) Batteries

Nickel Cadmium rechargeable batteries have for many years been a mainstay of two-way radio and telecoms. But soon they will disappear from use as a new EU directive passes into law.

An EU directive to be published in the fourth quarter of 2006 will mandate the collection of all spent batteries - but more importantly, it will ban portable NiCd batteries in telecommunications applications.

Batteries are specifically excluded from the requirements of the RoSH1 and the WEEE2 directives, because the current battery directive (91/157/EC) will be replaced by a new battery directive to remove heavy metals from the waste stream.

A ban on heavy metals

There are two main headline requirements of the new directive. One will be to ban the use of cadmium and mercury in portable batteries, with certain exemptions (industrial batteries are not subject to this ban). Exemptions from the mercury ban are primary button cells and exemptions from the cadmium ban are the following:

batteries for emergency lighting
power tools
certified medical equipment
batteries subject to the requirements for national security

These exemptions, with the exception of those for national security, exist because alternatives do not exist in current battery technology. The directive also has a requirement for these exemptions to be reviewed.

The other main requirement will be to enforce the collection and recycling of all batteries and provide tough collection and recycling targets. For instance, industry will be required to collect 25% by weight of batteries sold within four years of the directive coming into force. Users of batteries will be required to return spent batteries for recycling at no cost to the user.

Ni-CD Battery

Nickel-cadmium cells are to disappear from handheld radios as part of an effort to exclude poisonous heavy metals from our landfill waste.

Obligations for battery suppliers

Producers, who are defined as "...any person in a Member Statre that, irrespective of the selling technique used, including by means of distance communication as defined in Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 20 May 1997 on the protection of consumers in respect of distance contracts, places batteries or accumulators, including those incorporated into appliances or vehicles, on the market for the first time within the territory of that Member State on a professional basis" will be required to register the fact that they are producers of batteries and fund the collection and recycling of spent product and public information campaigns to make the end users aware of the collection and recycling requirements.

The directive contains definitions for such things as a battery, a battery pack, industrial battery, automotive battery, portable battery and who is a distributor and who is a producer.

All batteries will need to be marked with a crossed out dustbin, with their channel symbol.

Tying up the loose ends.

Several detailed issues are still not clearly defined by the directive and will be subject to a comitology3 procedure. Among these outstanding matters are a definition of producer, recycling efficiencies, and definition of the requirement to mark batteries with their capacity. This marking requirement is not an issue with rechargeable batteries but does entail significant consideration for primary batteries, as they are subject to great variation in the available capacity, depending on the application in which they are used.

The directive is expected to be published in the fourth quarter of 2006. Up to two years are allowed for national implementation, and so the total time scale will depend on the speed at which the British Government implments the directive.

It is expected that producers will comply with the directive's requirement to collect and recycle batteries by joining a collection and recycling organisation (CRO). The battery industry will create a CRO and will expect to charge a recycling fee at the point of sale at a value dependent on the battery weight so that the CRO can fund the costs of collection, sorting and recycling spent procducts.

Call the ETS team on 0870 428 6268 for more information on batteries available.

1 RoHS: restriction on the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.

2 WEEE: waste electrical and electronic equipment

3 Comitology: if clarification of an issue is required, then a committee chaired by the EU Commission and staffed by member states' experts meets to resolve it

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