With Australia’s environment ministers meeting in a few days, peak groups representing Australia’s waste management and resource recovery industry and the environment movement have come together to demand urgent mandatory regulation of all end-of-life (EoL) batteries, which, under current practices, pose serious risks to the environment and resource recovery sectors.
The Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR), the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) and peak NGO, Total Environment Centre say current fire and environmental risks are totally unacceptable and are calling on federal and state environment ministers who are meeting next week to urgently establish a new mandatory product stewardship scheme, for all batteries, including those embedded in consumer electronics.
Such schemes oblige design standards, funding from all producers to support management at end of life including accessible collection points; enabling repair and refurbishment where possible, processing recovered materials; and effective nationwide education and labelling about risks and the need for safe disposal.
Read more: Waste industry unites over battery fires
“Batteries represent a major threat to the waste and recycling sector,” said TEC Director, Jeff Angel. “That threat has not been taken seriously by the battery industry or its voluntary recycling scheme (B-cycle), which continues to miss most of its targeted batteries for collection does not have the structure or governance to do the required job for a circular economy. Our recent review of B-cycle collection points and industry practice found grave deficiencies.”
“Australia’s recycling sector faces an existential threat from batteries and battery-powered consumer electronics that continue to be incorrectly disposed of in conventional bins,” said Suzanne Toumbourou, CEO of ACOR. “This includes vapes, electric toothbrushes, digital thermometers and e-scooter batteries, which pose a fire risk if put in the wrong bin. The risk to recycling infrastructure and the safety of our workers can’t be underestimated: the total lack of producer responsibility has resulted in over 10,000 fires a year across the country’s waste and recycling system.”
“This issue requires urgent government action as our workers and facilities are at risk daily given the lack of a safe pathway to manage these at end of life,” said Gayle Sloan, CEO of WMRR. “Australia continues to shift its reliance from fossil fuels to electrification using batteries, we need to ensure that there are safe, comprehensive whole-of-life systems in place to manage these valuable materials and keep them out of our traditional collection systems. With the Federal election coming next year we need to consider states going it alone.”
Model regulation will be presented to the joint environment ministers meeting on 10 December 2024. We urge all Australian governments to commit to a new mandatory stewardship scheme to ensure a robust, well governed, efficient and effective system that encompasses all loose and embedded batteries, the groups said.