El Bosque Ecopilas
The 2006 Directive prohibited Member States from placing on the market batteries and accumulators containing more than certain percentages of cadmium and mercury, with the exception of button batteries containing more than 2% mercury by weight and portable batteries and accumulators containing cadmium intended for use in wireless power tools.
Link: Directive 2006/66/CE
Royal Decree 106/2008 on batteries, accumulators and the management of their waste transposed Directive 2006/66/EC and established the obligation for producers of batteries and accumulators to finance the collection and management of their waste.
Link: Royal Decree 106/2008 de 1 de febrero
The 2013 Directive extended the ban to the latter, so that button batteries with more than 0.0005% mercury by weight and portable batteries intended for use in wireless power tools with more than 0.002% cadmium by weight can no longer be placed on the market since five years ago.
Amendments were also introduced to improve the existing regulation on the information to be provided to the competent administration by battery producers and facilities and detailed rules for the calculation of efficiency levels of recycling processes in batteries and accumulators, according to Regulation 493/2012.
Finally, this amendment adapts the extended liability scheme of the producer of batteries and accumulators to Law 22/2011 and new targets were set for the collection of this waste.
In 2015 it was updated through Royal Decree 710/2015, which transposes Directive 2013/56/EU into Spanish law. This royal modification decree also adapts the 106/2008 to the new regime that Law 22/2011, on waste and contaminated soils establishes in the matter of extended responsibility of producers.
Link: Royal Decree 710/2015
THREE KEYS TO ROYAL DECREE 710/2015
It establishes and organises the separate collection of batteries and accumulators.
It defines valuation and recycling targets.
It defines the obligations of the different economic agents.
On the calculation of waste collection targets for batteries and accumulators, the Royal Decree extended the concept of collection rate, which applies not only to portable batteries and accumulators but also to automotive and industrial batteries and accumulators.
OBJECTIVES: For portable batteries and accumulators:
- a) 25 percent as of December 31, 2011.
- b) 45 per cent from 31 December 2015.
- c) 50 per cent from 31 December 2020.
OBJECTIVES: For automotive batteries and accumulators:
(a) from 31 December 2009: annual collection of 90 per cent in weight of automotive batteries, accumulators and batteries sold to users in the year preceding the year of collection.
b) From 31 December 2011: annual collection of 95 per cent in weight of automotive batteries, accumulators and battery packs sold to users in the year preceding the year of collection.
(c) From 31 December 2018: a minimum annual collection rate of 98 per cent shall be achieved.
OBJECTIVES: For batteries, accumulators and industrial batteries containing cadmium:
From 31 December 2011, at least the annual collection target of 95 per cent in weight of waste batteries, accumulators and industrial batteries containing cadmium generated in the year preceding the year of collection must be reached for the whole of the national territory.
Likewise, the following minimum collection rates must be reached for waste batteries, accumulators and industrial batteries:
(a) 98 per cent for batteries, accumulators and industrial batteries containing cadmium from 31 December 2017.
(b) 98 per cent for batteries, accumulators and industrial batteries containing lead, from 31 December 2017.
(c) 70 per cent for batteries, accumulators and industrial batteries containing neither cadmium nor lead, from 31 December 2020.
These objectives are established without prejudice to the Autonomous Communities that have approved a more demanding Waste Management Plan for batteries and accumulators.
In the following PDF you can also read the legal analysis carried out by our collaborators at Gómez. -Acebo and Pombo, on the most recent Royal Decree and its repercussions on our current scope of work: