Review of legal requirements related to extended producer responsibility of lithium batteries in Germany, France, and Spain

Abstract

The inclusion of batteries and accumulators in the market improved the increase of electronic devices use, mobility, convenience, and reduction of fossil fuel motors in society. Among the batteries, lithium-ion is currently the best solution due to the energy capacity, chargeability, and scalability. In 2030 the rate of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) production capacity will be fifty times bigger than in 2020 and this is highly influenced by the use of LIB in electronic vehicles (EVs). However, the future of batteries in still unclear because of the lack of raw material and its end-of-life management. To solve this challenge, policies regarding reuse, refurbishment, and recycling of LIB are being developed to guarantee longer life to batteries and the reuse of minerals, as lithium, cobalt, and nickel to produce new items. As part of policies, the extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a crucial point to guarantee circularity for batteries. This study has the goal to analyse the EPR in Europe, mainly Germany, France, and Spain, regarding LIB management, logistics, and recycling ratios. Since the three countries are part of European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN), many policies, mainly for logistics and recycling rates, are defined by this country partnership, which makes simpler the process of transboundary operations and standardization of waste code and definitions. On the other hand, each nation has also specific regulations or authority’s systems that must be considered to manage LIB. Currently EU is in process to approve a new regulation for batteries and this will influence all the member countries to review its specific regulations and supervision to guarantee a convergent policy for LIB and improve circularity of this type of item and its metal parts.