As of: March 2006

Waste Appliances and Waste Batteries

Every year about 1 billion disposable batteries and rechargeable batteries are put on the market in Germany.

Although it is widely known that many batteries contain environmentally harmful substances such as mercury, cadmium or lead, and in spite of the possibility of returning spent batteries to battery manufacturers free of charge via the dealers, most consumers have in the past disposed of waste batteries (excluding car batteries) as domestic waste.

This prompted the Federal Government to enact the "Batteries Ordinance" in 1998. The purpose of this ordinance is to ensure that spent batteries are recycled or disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.

The Batteries Ordinance was tightened up in 2001: the marketing of certain batteries (especially the commonest batteries such as alkali-manganese and zinc-carbon cells) is now prohibited if the mercury content exceeds 0.0005 percent by weight.

The Batteries Ordinance also requires

• Manufacturers and distributors of batteries to accept returned batteries after use and to play a part in their recycling and/or environmentally sound disposal in the interest of closed substance cycles.
  
  
• The consumer to return used batteries to the trade or to the local authority reception points (e.g. collection centres, mobile collection units).

On the basis of the Batteries Ordinance the manufacturers and distributors of batteries have established in Germany common return systems.

For the manufacturers and importers, the systems/collect spent batteries from some of the stores and the public waste management entities through out Germany and ensures that they are recycled or disposed of in an environmentally sound fashion.

About 77 % of the collected spent batteries and nearly 100 % of the car batteries are recycled (year 2004).