Today, the European Council has strengthened the regulations governing batteries and used batteries. The rule will govern the entire life cycle of batteries, including manufacturing, reusing, and recycling, ensuring their competitiveness, safety, and sustainability. The regulation will cover SLI (starting, lighting, and ignition) batteries commonly used for vehicles and machinery, batteries for light modes of transportation, waste portable batteries, and industrial batteries.
It is also revealed when the regulation can be adopted by the big giant manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple. By 2027, portable batteries used in appliances must be detachable and changed by the end-user, according to the legislation. The council provides the manufacturers plenty of time to modify their goods’ designs to meet this need. This statement is crucial for customers. The rule provides a designated collection aim for waste batteries – 51% by the end of 2028 and 61% by the end of 2031.
Also, it has set targets for producers to collect 63% of waste portable batteries by the end of 2027 and 73% by the end of 2030, which may vary with varied technology, market and lithium supply. The law sets minimum levels of recycled material for industrial, SLI, and EV batteries at 6% for lithium, 6% for nickel, 85% for lead, and 16% for cobalt. The EU plans to make the process of replacing batteries easier for consumers, but it doesn’t say that the process can be carried out without any equipment.
To replace batteries with readily available equipment by requiring Original Equipment Manufacturer(OEM), the European Union is also ready to demand OEMs to provide the equipment free of charge. Samsung has already taken steps to implement new EU regulations; in 2023, the firm will stop batteries that are attached to phones’ chassis so that users can remove fresh batteries. The batteries are housed in special adhesive pouches. In Order to satisfy the requirements of the EU, Samsung might not need to make more design adjustments by 2027.
