EUROBAT Presents Poster at IARC 2011

EUROBAT EU Affairs Officer, David Howard, presented a poster at the International Automobile Recycling Congress (IARC) that took place from 23 to 25 March in Budapest, Hungary. The event looked at the challenges facing the automotive recycling industry and included a session on batteries. One of the keynote speakers at the event was Rosalinde Van Der Vlies, Deputy Head of the Waste Management Unit in the Commission’s DG Environment, who noted that recycling targets at present were only quantitative and not qualitative and said this is something that would be looked at in the future. A review of all recycling targets will take place in 2014, including the targets for batteries, and at issue in this review will be whether recycling targets should be maintained for individual products or whether recycling targets should instead be substance based.
Speakers at the session on batteries said that dealers are not familiar enough with the rules on the transport of batteries and that there was a lack of understanding of lithium batteries as “small chemical plants” when compared to lead-based batteries. Good guidelines on the removal of batteries are needed and the dismantling of batteries should only be done by recycling professionals. Willy Tomboy of Toyota said that it was too soon to discuss the second life of batteries but Jean-Pol Wiaux of Recharge noted that under the Battery Directive, it was clear that manufacturers remained responsible even in second-life.  This is an issue that will require further discussion with the Commission. Eric Nottez of SNAM said he believed notification of waste batteries will be required within the next 3 years and concluded by saying that closing the loop for batteries is viable and that SNAM are currently conducting a study on this.    
EUROBAT poster presented batteries contribution to the development of a sustainable environment, focusing on battery recycling and end of life batteries.

Please click here to see the website of the event