International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

specific battery types, they might exceed the estimate made here (which, in any case,
majors on greenhouse gas and air pollution consequences – some of the effects are
likely to be in reduced hazards of disposal which are more difficult to capture in a
basic analysis).
The next section highlights some analyses which look at the general environmental
benefits of the removal of hazardous substances and increased recycling. Taking the
performance in terms of collection and recycling as a proxy for environmental
performance, we then review the factors which seem influential in driving
improvements in collection rates.
25.5.2 Environmental Consequences of Producer Responsibility for
Batteries
Several of the reports mentioned in previous sections have commented on the
environmental benefits of battery collections.
The Impact Assessment on Selected Policy Options for Revision of the Battery
Directive states the relatively obvious – that the establishment of separate collection
targets are expected to have positive consequences in terms of controls on the
hazardous substances contained within batteries and also in the use of recycled
rather than virgin materials (though these positive benefits may be partially offset by
the environmental impacts due to additional activities required to separate, collect
and recycle batteries). 550 It should be noted however that transport logistics are not,
usually, a decisive factor in determining impacts in environmental terms, especially,
as here, when the external benefits of recycling are potentially so high.
While a lack of LCA data meant that it was not possible to assess the overall
environmental balance of collecting and recycling all portable batteries, an
assessment of NiCd batteries showed that there would be environmental benefits 2.5
to 13 times higher than the baseline scenario. Whilst this is a wide range, since
cadmium batteries are classified as hazardous waste and its substitutes (Nickel-
Metal Hydride and Lithium chemistries) are not, one can conclude that the phasing
out of cadmium batteries would result in decreased environmental impacts in the
future.
The same study estimates the amount of metals which could be recovered from
portable batteries annually across the EU at 66,028 tonnes, the breakdown of which
is shown in Table 19-2. It should be noted that these figures are based on portable
battery sales information from 2002 and as such the levels of the hazardous
substance cadmium are relatively high. With the tight restrictions on the use of
cadmium put forward in the Directive, and the banning of NiCd batteries in all but a
few applications, there has been a significant reduction in the amount of cadmium
being used in portable battery production for the EU market in recent years. For
example, in Germany, from 2003 to 2007, the quantity in tonnage terms of NiCd
550 BIO Intelligence Service (2003).
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International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes