Perhaps you recognize the situation: You have bought a new mobile phone and right from the start the battery lasts a long time. But after a few years, it takes less and less time for the battery to die, and you start taking the charger with you everywhere so you don’t run out of power. Finally, the charger must be connected to the power outlet almost constantly, unless you want a black screen in front of you. By that time, you’ve probably already bought a new phone, and the manufacturers are happy about that. Then they can sell you a new mobile again, even if there really wasn’t anything wrong with the old one other than the battery. Before, you could replace the battery when it was exhausted. But you can’t do that anymore, because today the battery of almost all mobile phones is glued into the phone, and the back plate is also almost impossible for ordinary people to remove. If you have enough money to buy a new phone every year this is not a practical problem. But nature ultimately pays a price, because the amount of electronic waste increases and increases as we acquire more gadgets. At the same time, the many new gadgets require large amounts of resources to produce and many of the resources are never recycled, but end up in landfills and incinerators. The EU will now try to put an end to that. Therefore, the EU Parliament has adopted a new law which entered into force on 17 August. The law states that from 2027 it is only permitted to sell mobiles, notebook PCs, tablets etc. where you can easily change the battery yourself and without special tools. The new battery rules come as part of the EU’s new so-called “Green Deal”, which is a plan aimed at making the EU’s economy more sustainable and climate-friendly. “Batteries are the key to the EU’s transition to transport that does not emit CO2. At the same time, used batteries contain many valuable resources and we must recycle the important raw materials instead of being dependent on importing the substances from third countries. The new rules will promote the competitiveness of European industry and ensure that new batteries are sustainable and contribute to the green transition,” says Teresa Ribera, the Spanish Minister for Green Transition, in a press release. May have significance far beyond the EU’s borders The law can also have consequences far beyond the EU’s borders. The European market is so large and has such purchasing power that manufacturers have a great interest in following the rules so that they can continue to sell to European consumers. It becomes expensive and cumbersome for manufacturers if, for example, they try to make two versions of each mobile phone – one for the EU, where the battery is replaceable and one for the rest of the world, where it is glued on. The hope is therefore that consumers in the rest of the world will also be able to change the batteries in the future. Along with the rules that the batteries must be replaceable, the new Battery Act also contains a number of provisions that set environmental requirements for both how the batteries are produced and how they are recycled. This is done in order to “prevent and reduce the negative environmental impact of batteries and ensure a safe and sustainable value chain for all batteries, with regard to e.g. battery production’s CO2 footprint, ethical procurement of raw materials and security of supply, as well as the promotion of recycling, re-use and recycling,” the legal text says. However, the new requirements will be introduced gradually from 2025 onwards, and it will therefore take many years before they take full effect. The EU has also recently passed legislation ensuring that all gadgets must be charged with the same standard charger (USB-C), to avoid piles of old chargers piling up because people have to throw away the old one every time they buy a new phone or tablet. The law will come into effect at the end of 2024. The commission has also put forward a bill that would oblige all electronics manufacturers to offer repairs at a “reasonable price” if the product breaks after the warranty period expires.
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The EU defies the technology giants’ tricks: Soon you will have the right to replace bad batteries
