Why battery EPR doesn’t have a packaging problem
By Stefanie Valentic
For 25 years, battery and electronics legislation chugged along with little movement.
The Battery Network was founded in the 1990s to keep heavy metals out of landfills, and for most of its history, that was the story. Over the years, the conversation regarding battery disposal shifted rapidly as truck and facility fires hit mainstream conversations.
“The last five years, battery EPR laws and draft bills have more than doubled in many, many states,” said Carin Stuart, senior director, steward services at The Battery Network. “Again, all focus on the safety issues that solid waste entities see in their trucks or their facilities.”
Stuart has watched the legislative surge from a unique or particular point of view. The Battery Network is a 501c3 nonprofit with more than three decades of collection program experience. The organization doesn’t lobby, but when state stakeholders want to know what works, they’re a source of best practices and guidance.
“I become involved in the conversation if state stakeholders want best practices,” she told Resource Recycling. “We’ve been operating programs for decades, so we have a lot of experience to share.”
That experience has produced a clear framework for what functional battery EPR looks like: accessibility metrics, regular education and outreach measured through awareness surveys, and, perhaps the most critical of all, safe downstream handling from the moment a battery is tossed in collection.
“If people don’t know about it, they won’t take the action to recycle their batteries. We recommend things like what is your accessibility rate, making sure that residents have access to the program and then minimum safety procedures, just because they go in our boxes doesn’t mean we can stop there,” Stuart said.
On the question of where current EPR legislation falls short, Stuart didn’t point to collection access. She pointed further downstream.
“I think just making sure that there’s oversight of who is collecting and what’s happening with the batteries, how are they being treated, how are they being processed,” she said. “The Battery Network is one entity that can operate in this environment, but we’re not the only ones.”
As more operators enter the battery collection space, the absence of consistent downstream oversight requirements creates a weak link that EPR laws haven’t fully addressed, Stuart indicated.
A model framework
With more than 61 million Americans set to live in states with mandatory household battery recycling requirements by 2027, the compliance picture for national producers could get complex. For now, Stuart says it largely hasn’t and credits the PRBA model bill.
“To date we have very little unharmonization,” she said. “Almost every state has harmonized on the terms and definitions that are the most important. The plan that the industry has wanted — to harmonize as much as possible across states — has actually happened.”
PRBA, the Rechargeable Battery Association that represents battery manufacturers on legislative and regulatory issues, developed the roughly 20-page producer-funded model bill covering small- and medium-format portable batteries. The template establishes a common set of definitions including a consistent standard for what constitutes a “covered battery.”
Colorado and Nebraska both passed battery EPR laws that closely follow the PRBA model legislation. The goal is simple: a resident traveling from New York to Vermont should encounter the same accepted materials at the drop-off bin in both states.
Minor differences remain such as rechargeable versus primary battery coverage in a handful of states, but Stuart characterized those as manageable exceptions.
Kentucky’s new battery EPR law, which is voluntary for producers, drew a pointed response. The Battery Network has already been running a voluntary rechargeable collection program in the state for over 30 years.
“I’m not sure that that law will have a whole lot of impact as to what occurs today,” Stuart said.
A functioning program
Stuart described Vermont as an example of what a well-functioning battery EPR ecosystem looks like.
“They’ve had a program for over a decade and our collections have continued to increase year-over-year,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of their population lives within 15 miles of a collection site.”
And in rural communities, residents typically make weekly trips to a central solid waste drop-off site. The Battery Network partners with those locations.
“If you’re already going there, keep your batteries to the side and put them in the box,” Stuart said. “Those communities very happily partner with us because they see the importance and the ease at which they can partner with our network.”
Urban underserved communities and tribal lands get separate outreach campaigns targeting both collection access and consumer education, she added.
The federal level
On the question of federal intervention, Stuart said it isn’t coming.
The EPA is developing a battery EPR framework, which is not model legislation, but a voluntary document covering current practices, collection options and implementation considerations, as required under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the extent of federal activity she expects.
“I don’t think anybody expects a federal-level battery EPR program to come out,” Stuart said. “I think we’re going to be at a state-by-state situation. Thankfully, states look to each other, and that’s why I think we’ve been very successful in having a mostly harmonized law across each state.”
And the question of EPR lawsuits raised against the backdrop of Oregon’s packaging EPR injunctions was an easy answer.
“There are no lawsuits under a battery EPR law. I don’t see one coming,” Stuart said. “We have such a long history and best practices developed. Packaging is so new, so unique, and there wasn’t one industry on its own overseeing it. There are multiple industries affected by packaging.”
The contrast with packaging EPR isn’t just operational. It’s structural, she said.
Battery EPR already has a single, experienced industry behind it, decades of proven implementation and a harmonized legal framework already in place.
“I definitely embrace this growth,” Stuart said. “We can make sure there’s a very efficient and effective way to accomplish the goals that everybody’s setting out to do.”
