Pioneering the removal of mercury from all portable batteries
Sustainability
EPBA and its member companies are committed to cultivating a thorough understanding of all factors that influence the sustainability of its products across their entire life cycle, so that this knowledge can be applied to develop best practices in cooperation with suppliers and other stakeholder industries, with whom ongoing dialogue is essential.
Sustainability has always been high on the agenda of the EPBA members even long before the term became common practice. This is also reflected in the actions the members have undertaken over the years particularly focusing on environmental protection one of which has been the removal of added mercury from all portable batteries that are placed on the EU market. This has been done in various phases since the decision to remove mercury always had to fulfill the highest safety considerations for the consumer and it could not negatively impact the overall performance of the battery:
Voluntary removal of mercury from alkaline and zinc batteries
Substitution of mercuric oxide batteries
Mercury elimination and the two-step plan
Ambitious timeframe to ban the exemption for mercury containing button cells from the Batteries Directive