Over the last year the European Union has gotten serious about setting regulations for its member nations when it comes to recycling and waste management. The EU laid out its directives which included lowering the amount of waste sent to landfills and increasing recycling rates. This set things in motion as some countries, specifically the United Kingdom, were well behind where they needed to be in terms of recycling and were still sending far too much rubbish to landfills. As the new year comes in there are going to be even more laws concerning recycling, as the EU responds to the world’s desire to get greener. Starting next month the people who produce batteries will be forced to take a whole new approach to recycling.
Batteries are dangerous for a variety of reasons. Harmful chemicals often leak into soil which eventually finds its ways into water supplies, and with literally hundreds of millions of batteries in every country they take up a lot of valuable space in landfills. This is what led the EU to set the directive, which requires producers of batteries to offer collection and recycling locations for the batteries that they put into the market. Studies showed that people in Europe were still not recycling batteries at a high enough rate so the idea was to put the pressure on businesses through legislation.
This puts a lot of pressure on battery manufacturers, especially those who produce industrial and automotive batteries for places like airports or hospitals, which can now have them picked up and disposed of at the cost of the producer.
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