How many batteries do you use in your household? There’s your phone, your computer, your car, your remote control, your camera, your children’s toys, your clock, your electric toothbrush… it starts to add up, doesn’t it? And do you know what chemicals are in them? Alkaline? Nickel-cadmium? Nickel metal hydride? Lithium (of which there are several types)? Lead-acid?

In 2006, the Europe-wide Batteries Directive was laid, with the intention of increasing battery recycling and cutting the amount of hazardous substances – in particular, mercury, cadmium and lead – dumped in the environment. Member states were obliged to promote separate waste collections and prevent batteries and accumulators being thrown in the residual bin. The directive became law in the UK in 2010, obligating producers selling more than 32 kilogrammes (kg) a year of portable batteries to take back used batteries from the public free of charge, via compliance schemes, of which there are five. Collection rates of at least 25 per cent had to be reached by 26 September 2012 and of 45 per cent (around 30,000 tonnes) by 26 September 2016.

Drop-off points in supermarkets and the inclusion in doorstep collections made getting hold of the batteries a lot easier. The UK’s recycling rate for portable batteries went from two per cent in 2008 to 27.7 per cent in 2012. It’s a good improvement, but it still means over 60 per cent are being landfilled or incinerated. Not only that, but anomalies in the law mean that there are batteries collected for recycling that are being stored instead of reprocessed.

Portable batteries, as defined in the directive, are those that are sealed, easily hand carried and not designed exclusively for professional or industrial use. But here’s the problem – what is easily carried by one hand might not be by another, and, as the target is weight based, heavier batteries are getting the preferred treatment.

Defra and the Environment Agency have issued guidance, but it is ambiguous, as Michael Green, Managing Director of battery sorters G&P Batteries, recalls: “The guidance we got was that anything under 4kg is definitely easily hand carried, 4-10kg use your best judgement.” (To put lead-acid batteries in some context, those used in cars weigh about 18kg.)

It meant that compliance schemes clambered to collect the portable and more easily recycled lead-acid batteries to meet targets; 70 per cent of their weight contains reusable lead, and a compliance scheme can get around £300 for a tonne of lead-acid batteries, whereas they will have to pay to recycle other types. “If a compliance scheme collects lead-acid batteries, producers get cheaper compliance. The UK collected 30 per cent of batteries placed on the market in 2013, but of that 12,000 tonnes that needed to be collected, 10,000 tonnes was lead-acid.”

Indeed, the UK sent fewer non-lead-acid batteries for recycling in 2013 than it did in 2009, the year before the legislation came in! But the non-lead-acid batteries are still being collected, and therein, ironically, lies the problem: a mountain of batteries that cannot be landfilled and, once collected, cannot legally be used for energy recovery, is having to be stored.

This isn’t ideal, as Green points out: “There are hazards that come along with storing batteries. Primary [single-use] lithium batteries are probably the most volatile chemistry, and we’ve had a number of incidents over the years where they’ve been implicated. So, what we do, in the sorting process, is take out the highest risk batteries and send those for recycling as soon as we can.” However, primary lithium batteries are difficult to recycle as they tend not to have any significant metallic content, so only the metallic case is recovered.

Defra is still working on further guidance (a year after a consultation to amend the definition of ‘portable batteries’ closed in September 2013), but it is hoped that this can change the landscape. “The UK is the only member state that achieves its portable battery collection target in this way, by relying heavily on lead-acid batteries. Everybody else is doing it right”, suggests Green. “If the amount of lead-acid batteries being recycled drops [because a redefinition of portable would set a limit at 3kg, say] the difference has to be made up with other types and the problem reduces.”

Green also says there needs to be more done on educating people on how to treat batteries, as well as which batteries contain the most critical resources: “It’s the handling of the batteries that cause the risk, not the batteries themselves. Joe Public does not know about batteries, and that’s a role I think the local authorities could play a much bigger part in. Consumers can’t tell the difference between different batteries so they’re not going to think ‘Well, I’ve got a nickel cadmium – I’d better recycle it.’”

Moving from a metal-focused view could also improve the situation, says Green: “There is carbon in most batteries, and the form that is used in batteries is expensive, but nobody is recovering that because all the recycling processes are furnace based and they burn it all off.”

Indeed, at present, we can only smelt lead batteries in the UK; the rest go overseas. Green explains that despite furnaces recovering the legislated amount of useful material – which is set at 65 per cent for lead-acid, 75 per cent for nickel-cadmium, 50 per cent for everything else – the hydrometallurgical process, whereby metals are recovered from acid or alkaline dissolved batteries, is far superior, but alas a lot more expensive. “As soon as you set a target, the cheapest method of achieving that target wins… who is going to invest in a plant in the hope that the government will resolve a legislative problem?”

Let’s just hope we can reach the summit before it becomes insurmountable.