G&P Batteries Questions Lead Acid Inclusion for Skewing Stats : Battery Recycling Firm Calls for Inquest into UK’s Collection Data
Wednesbury, UK based waste battery collection company, G & P Batteries, has called for an urgent meeting of stakeholders to discuss the over-reliance of lead acid batteries to meet its EU obligations for portable waste battery recycling.
The company explained that its concern comes as the latest figures issued by the Environment Agency on NPWD (National Packaging Waste Database) show that for the second year running, the UK missed its 45% collection target by just under 1%.
In 2017 a total of 39,471 tonnes of portable batteries were placed on the market during the year, with the ABTO’s (Approved Battery Treatment Operators) and ABE’s (Approved Battery Exporters) from the Battery Compliance Schemes reporting the collection of 17,427 tonnes of batteries, a rate of 44.15%.
For some time G & P has been highlighting the discrepancies in the figures, when comparing the number of lead acid batteries being placed onto the market with those being collected for recycling.
It believes that this is creating a false impression of the UK’s portable battery recycling track record with the disparity of lead acid batteries placed on, and collected from the market now running at over 560%, with 1701 tonnes placed on the market and 9520 tonnes taken off.
Greg Clementson, Managing Director of G & P Batteries urged all stakeholders in the chain to get together to examine what is going on.
“Whilst it appears that the UK has missed its recycling target by less than 1% the reality is that this country is clearly underperforming when it comes to waste battery collection and is side-stepping its obligations by apparently fudging the figures,” he said.
Clementson added that despite changes in guidance, which reduces the weight threshold of portable lead acid batteries from a maximum of 10kgs to 4kgs, the government’s figures clearly show that lead acid battery collection continues to dominate, whilst the other chemistries, which the Directive was intended to address, have actually dropped by 3% since 2016.
“Anyone looking closely at these figures will realise that something isn’t right and that we have a moral obligation to look into what is happening, as despite the over-reliance on lead acid batteries, we’ve actually missed the mandatory 45% target for the second consecutive year, ” he added.
G & P said that the situation is contrary to the aim and spirit of the legislation and cannot be sustainable in the long term It is calling for an investigation into why lead acid batteries are dominating these collection rates and to look more closely into how the figures are recorded.
“Before the legislation was enacted, the UK already recycled 99% of its lead acid batteries and only 3% of other chemistries,“ said Clementson. The legislation was designed to encourage greater recycling of all battery types and whilst collection rates for other chemistries have improved, the Environment Agency figures clearly demonstrate that we are actually collecting fewer batteries of other chemistries rather than more.“
“This over-reliance on lead acid batteires is not seen in other European countries where the regulations apply, and suggests that the UK is actually underperforming when it comes to the other battery chemistries,” he concluded.
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