Environmental guidance for your business in Northern Ireland & Scotland
This guidance is relevant to your retail or wholesale business if you:
The batteries regulations apply to distributors and producers of portable, industrial and automotive batteries.
You are a distributor if you sell or distribute batteries.
You are a producer if you import batteries, or goods containing batteries, or put batteries on the UK market for the first time.
You may have responsibilities as both a distributor and a producer.
Portable batteries are readily available for purchase by the general public or businesses, and are small enough to be carried by hand. Portable batteries include AA, AAA, C and D cells, button cells, mobile phone batteries and laptop batteries.
Products that use portable batteries include cameras, toys, laptops, cordless power tools, watches, electric toothbrushes and television remote controls.
An industrial battery is designed exclusively for industrial or professional use, such as batteries used in professional video equipment or studios, or in electric vehicles such as golf buggies.
An automotive battery is used for starting, lighting or ignition power for vehicles, including cars, motorcycles, vans, lorries, buses and tractors.
If you sell more than 32kg of portable batteries to end users per year, you must allow consumers to return waste batteries free of charge to your retail outlet. This applies if you sell batteries in a store, online or via mail order.
Use the Defra battery calculator to find out if you sell more than 32kg of batteries a year.
Collect waste batteries in a secure container.
Contact a battery compliance scheme to collect the waste batteries. The collection will be free of charge.
Contact your environmental regulator for a list of battery compliance schemes.
Contact your environmental regulator
If you import portable batteries, or goods containing batteries, or put portable batteries on the UK market for the first time, you must:
If you import industrial or automotive batteries, or put them on the UK market for the first time, you must:
National Packaging Waste Database
Groundwater in Northern Ireland, DAERA have produced a leaflet to raise awareness about this untapped resource
EU Exit, EU Exit useful information
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