Defeat for cadmium battery ban

Date: 21/10/1999

By Peter Chapman

EUROPEAN Commission environment officials have been told to abandon their efforts to slap an outright ban on the use of cadmium in batteries.

Former Environment Comm-issioner Ritt Bjerregaard had argued in favour of phasing out the metal, but her plans were scuppered first by opposition from other departments, which sided with the industry, and then by the mass resignation of the Santer team, which led to a freeze on new policy proposals.

Bjerregaard revived her proposals just before the summer break, citing new evidence to support her case for phasing out the batteries by 2008.

But officials say the draft directive, which also proposed setting targets for recovering and recycling all batteries, has been shot down by the Commission's industry and foreign trade departments.

They fear that the ban would impose too onerous a burden on firms, and would probably breach World Trade Organi-sation rules.

Bjerregard's officials argued that new evidence from researchers at Stockholm University showed that the metal, which has been linked to cancers and other health problems, could be replaced by environmentally friendly nickel metal hydride batteries. They claimed that these substitutes, which are already popular in Japan, could be sold as cheaply as batteries containing cadmium and would perform better.

But Raymond Sempels of the International Cadmium Association insisted that the Commission's environment officials had got their facts wrong. He acknowledged that substitutes could be used in some products, but said the cost would initially be far higher and claimed a cadmium ban would wreak havoc in the market for products where no substitutes are available.