(19/04/04) EP laadt zich op voor stemming over kankerverwekkende batterijen

• 2004-04-19

Watershed decision on poisonous batteries: MEPs must resist lobbying and ban carcinogenic Ni-Cad batteries

The European Parliament will vote tomorrow on a proposal to ban nickel-cadmium batteries where alternatives are available. This vote comes after an eight-year struggle in the Commission to revise the batteries directive amid massive industry lobbying. The last two Environment Commissioners both tried to propose such a ban, but failed to get the necessary support due to heavy lobbying by three main companies, SAFT, Sanyo and Black&Decker. Ni-Cad batteries account for more than 75% of the use of cadmium, a known human carcinogen, which is also classified as 'very toxic to aquatic organisms'.

The battery lobby won the fight in the Commission, as their proposal now only contains a separate collection target. However, the Parliament's Environment Committee voted for a general ban of Ni-Cad batteries, while granting exemptions for applications where it considered that substitutes were not yet fully available.

Netherlands MEP Alexander de Roo, Vice-Chair of the Environment Committee, said:
"The Council established a cadmium substitution policy where alternatives are available more than 15 years ago. We banned cadmium in the directives on end-of-life vehicles and on electrical and electronic equipment. Discharges, emissions and losses of cadmium to the aquatic environment have to be ceased within 20 years as a result of the water framework directive. There are well-established alternatives for all types of portable Ni-Cad batteries. How many more reasons are needed for the EU to support a phase-out of this extremely toxic metal? Batteries account for more than 75% of the use of cadmium – if we do not phase out cadmium in batteries, we make a mockery of both our political commitments and legal obligations."

Paul Lannoye, a Belgian (Ecolo) member of the Environment Committee added:
"The Commission's proposal would require municipalities to pay for costly waste analyses of 200 million tonnes of household waste every year to allow the continued use of these hazardous batteries. This turns the well-known hierarchy of waste management, which calls for prevention first, on its head: instead of banning a highly toxic substance where alternatives are available, each Member State would have to spend millions of Euros to search for Ni-Cad batteries in their waste."
"And all this comes primarily as a result of pressure from one company – SAFT, the world-leading manufacturer of industrial nickel-cadmium batteries. The batteries they produce would not even be affected by the Environment Committee's suggested ban. Nevertheless, they lobby against any cadmium restrictions, not least to topple the existing ban of Ni-Cad batteries in electric vehicles via the backdoor. But to make things really absurd, they themselves produce and promote alternatives to Ni-Cad batteries for all kinds of applications ranging from batteries for electrical vehicles to professional electronics, medical equipment and last – but not least – power tools. I call on my fellow MEPs not to be fooled by SAFT's lobbing efforts and to support as a very minimum the ban of nickel-cadmium batteries that was adopted in the Environment Committee."

In formation from SAFT on their Nickel-Metal Hydride alternatives to Nickel-Cadmium batteries