DISPOSAL OF USED BATTERIES IN MONTENEGRO FAR FROM EUROPEAN STANDARDS AND PRACTICE: HAZARDOUS WASTE CONTAMINATES FOOD AND AIR

Millions of household batteries, instead of being exported and recycled, end up in the trash. "When alkaline batteries are disposed of in a waste container with ordinary, municipal waste, the entire content becomes hazardous. This increases both the risk of pollution and the cost of waste management ", biologist Vuk Iković warns

Michael Bader moved to Montenegro from Germany 14 years ago. He rents the apartments in Utjeha Bay, between Bar and Ulcinj. He was the first out of 12 people from Montenegro to be awarded the Ecolabel certification from the European Union (EU) in 2012 for meeting high environmental standards.

Bader noticed that the guests were throwing away a large number of used batteries, so, since it was hazardous waste and guided by experience from Germany, he asked the Utility Company in Bar where they should be brought. They told him that they did not have the conditions for the disposal of used batteries.

"As there is no system for disposing and recycling batteries, I made a box for its disposal. Neighbors are also used to it, so instead of throwing them away, they leave the batteries with me ", Bader says in an interview for the Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG) and Monitor.

Several times a year he carried batteries to Germany.

"In Germany, in every city, there is a recycling center for hazardous waste - tires, computers, batteries, white goods... Such waste is collected free of charge there. A system has been set up to pick up used batteries in stores,” Bader says.

Eight years later, to Bader's repeated question, CIN-CG/Monitor received a similar answer from the Utility Company in Bar: "In the Waste Catalogue Ordinance - accumulators and waste batteries are classified as hazardous waste and since we are not registered to perform such types of activities, we do not have conditions for disposing and further treatment ”.

Although about 50 tons of batteries are imported and used in Montenegro annually, only a few hundred kilograms are returned abroad through authorized companies for recycling or safe disposal.

Most of it ends up in municipal waste, which poses a huge risk to the environment and human health. Distributors and sellers, despite the legal obligation transposed from the European Union, generally do not take back used batteries in places where new ones are procured, while only a few recycling centers do that - the research of CIN-CG/Monitor showed.

In domestic legislation, as well as in the EU legislation, batteries are treated as hazardous waste. They can contain dangerous substances - lead, cadmium and mercury. Heavy metals have far-reaching negative effects on the environment and human health. In the process of decomposition and decay, heavy metals go into the ground, but also groundwater, and then into the food chain. On the other hand, if they burn, heavy metals reach the air in the form of small particles, and further back into the soil and water.

Batteries, accumulators, soot, waste from paints, varnishes and glues, motor oils, pesticides…, are some of the hazardous wastes with which we are often in contact, biologist Vuk Iković, from the Organization KOD, reminds.

"Waste management is not organized in Montenegro. Thus, hazardous waste is often mixed with non-hazardous waste. When alkaline batteries or engine oil packaging are disposed of in a container with ordinary, municipal waste, the entire contents of that container become hazardous. This increases the risk of pollution and increases the cost of waste management,” Ikovic told CIN-CG/Monitor.

He reminds us that fines for mixing waste and improper disposal range from 1,000 to 40,000 euros. The Environmental Inspection, however, does not have precise data on the fines imposed, which, judging by the answers to CIN-CG/Monitor questions, mainly related to the illegal collection and handling of batteries for motor vehicles and other purposes.

"According to the Law on Waste Management, the Environmental Inspection initiates misdemeanor proceedings. In the previous period, there were misdemeanor proceedings that related, among other types of waste, to illegal management of waste batteries-accumulators (collection without a permit, handing over waste to an unauthorized collector, improper storage at the collection site, etc.), but records are not kept in a way that the number of procedures could be singed out, especially by type of waste ", Veselinka Zarubica, Chief Environmental Inspector of the Department for Environmental Inspection of the Administration for Inspection Affairs, said for CIN-CG/Monitor.

During 2018 and 2019, according to the data of the Customs Administration (CA), more than 1.3 million primary batteries were imported. The difference between primary and secondary batteries is that secondary batteries can be recharged, while primary ones have a significantly shorter shelf life. Data obtained by the Statistical Office of Montenegro Monstat somewhat differ from the CA and show that in 2018, more than 700,000 primary batteries were imported, in 2019 875 thousand, and from January to November last year 716 thousand. Batteries for motor vehicles and other purposes are imported significantly more: 4.7 million in 2018, 4.4 million in 2019, and 3.5 million from January to November last year.

It is certain that some of the batteries intended for the household arrive outside the customs procedure and are sold outside the official flows at markets and flea markets. Monstat does not have data or an estimate of how many disposable batteries a household consumes per year, as well as the number of batteries and accumulators that end up in the waste, they told CIN-CG/Monitor. That is why only comparison based on data from the region is possible. According to the statistical data published by Balkan Green Energy News, an online platform specialized in the topics of sustainable development and ecology, a four-member household in Serbia consumes 20 batteries a year.

In Montenegro, with almost 200,000 households, this could mean that about four million batteries containing hazardous substances end up in waste every year or about 50 tons.

Vasilije Seferović, executive director of Utility Company in Herceg Novi, stated for CIN-CG/Monitor that they collect about 330 kilograms of batteries a year. But, as they specify, these are only batteries that the company uses in the process of work. Batteries aren’t selected from the total amount of waste that is collected, since the company isn’t registered for that.

The data of the Waste Management Department of Utility Company in Podgorica also show that the awareness of hazardous waste disposal is not sufficiently developed. From January to the end of October last year, only 62 kilograms of batteries were disposed of in the six recycling yards they manage.

"They are temporarily stored in recycling yards, in containers that are specially intended for these types of waste. After filling the capacity, they are handed over to companies that have a license to manage this type of waste, from the relevant ministries", Podgorica's Utility Company stated for CIN-CG/Monitor.

Company for sanitary and environmental protection which collects hazardous waste ''Hemosan'' Ltd. Bar, says that in 2020, 291 kilograms of batteries were taken over. They are temporarily stored and then exported to EU countries.

"In 2019, we launched a campaign on collecting used batteries with the trade chain Idea and the Faculty of Business Economics and Law (from Bar), while last year our partner was the distributor S plus," Zoran Nikitović, the director of Hemosan, said.

Hemosan cannot state the exact export price, since the batteries were shipped with other hazardous waste. However, they estimate that 15 tons of batteries could be collected at the level of Montenegro, and exports would cost up to 20,000 euros.

"In Austria, batteries are destroyed, while in Germany they are recycled," Nikitović says.

Several hundred thousand tons of industrial and portable batteries reach the EU market every year - approximately 800 thousand tons of automobile, 190 thousand tons of industrial and 160 thousand tons of consumer batteries.

In case of the absence of a sustainable recycling end market, or if a detailed environmental, agricultural and social impact assessment finds that recycling is not the best solution, EU countries may dispose of waste portable batteries containing cadmium, mercury, or lead in landfills or underground warehouses.

Management of this type of waste in Montenegro is regulated by the Law on Waste Management.

"According to the law, waste batteries and accumulators, which, by the waste catalog, are not municipal waste, are handed over to a company or entrepreneur who performs the activity of collection, processing or disposing of special types of waste. Waste batteries and accumulators that make up municipal waste are handed over to places intended for this type of waste within the separate collection of municipal waste, or to places intended for the collection of these types of waste at distributors", Veselinka Zarubica, Chief Environmental Inspector, explains.

According to Zarubica, in practice, only the collection of waste accumulators works.

"Most accumulators are returned for recycling through the purchase of secondary raw materials. Also, a significant amount of waste accumulators is collected through the shares of accumulator’s distributors who give a certain discount when buying a new accumulator if the old one is returned ", the Chief Environmental Inspector points out.

The fact that the used accumulators are handed over to the seller, whereby a discount is obtained for the new one, is also a good example of recycling, Seferovic considers.

Zarubica confirms that the collection of batteries used in electrical and electronic devices has not improved significantly.

"The reason is primarily that this type of waste is generated in small quantities that are of interest for collectors of secondary raw materials. Certain quantities are collected through a system for selective waste collection set up by some companies."

According to the data from the website of the Environmental Protection Agency, for the time being, only Hemosan has received a permit for the export of hazardous waste this year. During the last year, in addition to this company, the following companies: Valgo Montenegro (a company specialized in the export of land and stone containing dangerous substances), Matej - Cetinje (specialized for waste mineral oils), and SS Alga Nikšić (specialized for waste lead batteries filled with acid) had permits as well.

"During the last year, permits were issued for the export of 3,000 tons of accumulators and batteries," Bojan Basanovic from the Environmental Protection Agency told CIN-CG/Monitor. Most often, waste accumulators are exported to Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic. According to the current classification, the Agency does not have data on how much it refers to household batteries.

The Agency notes that there is no official company in Montenegro that deals with the processing (treatment) of batteries and lead batteries. Hemosan explains that the recycling process involves a physical process of treating used batteries and usually consists of "sorting, magnetic separation, disassembly and grinding (crushing)". Metal residues can be processed by various processes, pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical. The products of these processes are metal alloys or solutions containing metal ions.

In the National Strategy for Transposition Implementation and Enforcement of the EU Acquis on Environment and Climate Change 2016-2020, it is pointed out that "basic principles of waste management that EU waste management is based on, even though integrated into the National Waste Management Strategy and National Plan for Waste Management, are still not fully applied in the system of waste management in Montenegro".

This document states that the requirements set out in Directive 93/86/EEC (batteries labeling) have not been transposed into the legal system of Montenegro, while they have been partly transposed by Directive 2006/66/EC (batteries and accumulators).

The most important objective of the 2006 Directive is that "The Member States shall, having regard to the environmental impact of transport, take necessary measures to maximize the separate collection of waste batteries and accumulators and to minimize the disposal of batteries and accumulators as mixed municipal waste as to achieve a high level of recycling for all waste batteries and accumulators”. The minimum collection rates to be achieved by the Member States were also prescribed: 25 percent by September 26, 2012, 45 percent by 2016.

Montenegro has practically not even started yet. The data published in December last year by the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism in the National Implementation Plan of the Minimata Convention on Mercury for the period 2021-2025 also show that immediate action should be taken. It states that the main source of mercury discharge is illegal disposal of municipal waste (940 kg of mercury per year) and waste disposal (692 kg of mercury per year).

According to the Regulation on the manner and procedure for the establishment of the system of taking, collecting, and treatment of waste deriving from batteries and accumulators and on the system functions from June 2012, distributors have numerous obligations that they do not respect. At the point of sale, they should collect waste portable batteries and accumulators free of charge, regardless of their origin and without conditioning the purchase of a new portable battery or accumulator. Containers for separate collection and temporary storage of collected waste portable batteries and accumulators should be placed and visibly marked.

"The Law on Waste Management stipulates the obligation for importers/producers to establish a joint system for collection and storage of used products and packaging. Unfortunately, these systems are not organized ", Zarubica says.

"We have no clue about that," workers at the Idea supermarket in Podgorica wondered when we asked them if we could leave used batteries there. At the Voli supermarket, they said we had to talk to the management, who referred us to their Board of Directors. Answers to CIN-CG/Monitor questions remained unanswered.

Over the past year, research by the large Swedish company IKEA has shown that if batteries are not properly destroyed, they have an immeasurable and long-term impact on the environment due to their content. It was decided to remove all alkaline batteries from use and sale by October 2021 and replace them with rechargeable ones, which are significantly less harmful to the environment.

Bader also takes fewer batteries to Germany: “I replaced everything with rechargeable batteries in the house and apartments. It was quite an investment, but it pays off over time. That's the way of protecting nature and health as well. "

Free of charge collection of used batteries in Croatia

The Regulation in Serbia also stipulates that used batteries and accumulators are taken over from the end-user in the sales facility, and then the trader hands them over to the collector or someone else who performs storage and treatment.

"You should know that for batteries as major pollutants, the state has prescribed an environmental tax that is included in the price of new batteries, so that every time you buy new batteries, part of the price you paid for those batteries is intended for collection, disposal and recycling", it is stated on the website that sells batteries online.

Collection campaigns are organized in some consumer stores, and some local governments do the same from time to time. The widest network for collecting used batteries is organized by the company Delhaize, and batteries can be handed over in more than 70 Maxi and Tempo supermarkets throughout Serbia. Last year alone, 1.4 tons were collected.

In Croatia, a directive is in force that prohibits the placing on the market of certain batteries or accumulators with a mercury or cadmium content above the fixed threshold. The goal is to reduce the number of hazardous substances that end up in nature. In Croatia, there are several possibilities for citizens to get rid of used batteries. They can bring them themselves to recycling yards, i.e. to specialized places of authorized collectors (shops, services, shopping centers…). Free collection is enabled, after calling a toll-free number, sending a message or an e-mail, or entering an order on the website of authorized waste collectors.

Battery acid is dangerous for the skin and eyes

In the case of battery leakage, take precautions to ensure that battery acid does not come into contact with skin or eyes. Otherwise, you will have to ask for medical help, the website from Serbia for the online sale of batteries warns. Batteries, as it is stated, contain various chemicals, some of which can be aggressive or dangerous to health.

Keep batteries out of children’s reach, thus eliminating the danger of swallowing them and poisoning. Do not dispose of it in the fire. Doing so may generate toxic gases and vapors during combustion. Do not charge non-rechargeable batteries. Do not open or disassemble, some of the substances inside (e.g. lithium) can be explosive in contact with air”, it is stated in the warning.

When asked what to do with used batteries, this site recommends not to throw them with other waste, because they contain heavy metals that can greatly pollute the soil and water, and afterward end up in food and endanger health.

"Take used batteries, regardless of their type or purpose, to one of the specialized stores. The majority of such stores have the authority to collect used batteries and hand them over to recycling centers."

Predrag NIKOLIĆ
Andrea JELIĆ