I have received some interesting responses from the manufacturer and supplier side of the industry in regards to last week's blog that considered what to do with spent lithium-ion batteries and who the responsibility ultimately lies with for their safe disposal.

Also, I've had the discussion widened, hearing that the industry should be concerned not only about the disposal of batteries, but also their shipping.

Not all are made equal

Firstly, some manufacturers were keen to point out that their batteries are all serviceable, which they argue is a major plus over some competitors' batteries that they would consider to be inferior. One told me how they were yet to replace a cell in a one of their batteries after seven years, although they have experienced imbalances which they were able to rectify with the software they hold.  

I heard how certain batteries apparently use a less volatile and toxic lithium mixture than other sealed batteries, allowing safe servicing, a longer life cycle and provide the ability to be re-energized.

Whilst I'm sure everyone reading this today would agree that some batteries are indeed better than others, I suppose all will eventually come to their end-of-life and then we're back to the same issue of the correct means of safe disposal and who must take responsibility for this.

A complicated subject

Another manufacturer / supplier who asked to remain anonymous, wanted to highlight that the whole discussion around lithium is incredibly complicated. They were to keen in fact, to expand the debate beyond just disposal, saying that they believed that other companies were not supplying the batteries correctly in the first place.

They told me that their business had taken this issue extremely seriously and had spent thousands of pounds to put their staff through the correct training so that they are able to issue dangerous goods notes and therefore be compliant. On top of this, they said, they have paid the extra expense to have two DGSA’s (Dangerous Goods Safety Advisers) employed at their company to make sure they stay compliant. By doing this they told me, they are authorised by the likes of TNT to ship batteries.

Where this supplier believed there was a problem in the industry, was with what they described as companies "black wrapping product" - meaning to ship without declaring that they are in fact dangerous goods. They described this as a huge issue that they felt could cause some serious difficulties down the line.

They told me that to their understanding (and just to stress, I'm only passing on what I was told), the legal requirement at the moment if a dealer is delivering new products that are classed as dangerous goods to customers in a van, they should be in possession of a written DGN (Dangerous Goods Note) and the driver should be ADR compliant (The European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road).

This, they said, would cost dealers a significant amount of money - and they did not know of any that were currently doing this.

Disposal

Returning to the issue of end of life battery disposal, this supplier said their company had spent a lot of time looking into the subject. They had come to the conclusion that the problem is that the product being disposed of is classed as "faulty"  - therefore as soon as a waste company is contacted to dispose of "faulty batteries", the prices quoted are extortionate.

Now this supplier was keen to point out that it is not the case that they are shirking their responsibilities in terms of disposal, they simply believed that at the moment there is not an affordable solution available.

They explained that the advice given to them, and what they pass on to their dealers for disposing of lithium batteries, is to give the battery back to the consumer and ask them to dispose of it themselves at their local waste or recycling centre. This is because most of these places will offer a service where they take faulty lithium products, but only from members of the public. As dealer Nigel Barnes correctly pointed out last week, for businesses it is classed as commercial waste and generally this cannot be disposed of at a local centre - a specialist disposal company would most likely need to be engaged, at some considerable cost.

The other problem that this supplier spoke of was space. I heard how their company held disposal bins at their premises, but they were expensive and large. They felt if they were to issue these bins to dealers, many would simply not have the space for the number required - because of course, dealers are trading in multiple battery-powered franchises.

This supplier (perhaps controversially some may feel?) also did not accept that the assumption that suppliers should be obliged to pick up the cost for battery disposal, was quite right. They drew parallels with the waste oil and fuel that dealers have always had to get rid of from petrol machinery. Should batteries be considered any different to these they asked?

They told me that they believed in the future dealers will own disposal bins and they will have to add a charge for disposal onto their service bills to cover the cost.

Certainly when we hear the situation described as "complicated", I don't think anyone could dispute that!

But what do you, our dealer readers think? Do you agree with this supplier's argument? Have you received different advice from elsewhere? Please let us know in the comments below - or feel free to drop me a line anonymously with your thoughts.