Charging up the batteries: Squeezing more capacity and power into the new EU Battery Directive

The pace of technological change with computers is creating a problematic scenario on what to do with the growing amount of electronic waste. E-junk is the fastest growing waste stream and the threat from spent batteries is growing as the volume in landfills grows. Batteries contain heavy metals or potentially toxic substances which pose dangers to human health and the environment. Environmentalists fear a critical contamination of soil and ground water from discarded batteries. To avoid this problematic scenario, a few companies under pressure from environmentalists have slowly begun to reduce or phase out the use of hazardous materials such as cadmium and are including batteries in their company's environmental compliance strategy implementing an end-of-life management. Increasingly, manufacturers are also moving on their own to recycle their products. As the volume of battery-waste continues to grow, solutions for its disposal become increasingly imperative and the management of electronic waste has to be assessed in the broad framework of Product Responsibility and the Precautionary Principle. The European Union has passed the Batteries Directive following the producer responsibility model underpinned by legislation, whereby producers of electronic/electrical products must take responsibility for those products at the end of their life. The law aims to reduce sharply the amount of harmful substances that leak from used batteries when they are dumped with regular trash in landfill. However, without a significant change by the manufacturers and other countries, the battery-waste will continue to grow with all its health and environmental consequences.