How does eneloop protect the environment ?

Background

Batteries are part of our modern life. Just imagine your houshold without batteries.

The amount of sold batteries in the European Union in 2005 was approximately 180 000 tons. ( SANYO estimation ).

In Germany for example more than 1.3 Billion batteries have been sold in 2005.

More than 90 per cent of this amount come from disposalbe batteries; i.e. batteries, which can only be used once

and have to be disposed after usage.

This alone represents a gigantic waste of resources, if you consider that 162 000 tons of batteries plus packaging

have been produced and transported only for a single use. Also the unavoidable burden for the environment by the

manfacturing process and by the transport should be considered. 

The governments of the EU member states have realized the potential threat for the environment by this huge amount of disposed batteries and have therefore requested the battery manufacturers to collect and recycle these batteries. In several european countries collection and recycling systems have been setup. In spite of all efforts, the amount of collected batteries is by far less than 50 percent in most countries. The reason for this is, that the consumers have to be motivated to bring back the spent batteries to specific collection points and not dump them in the houshold garbage.  

The consequence of this still poor collection rate is, that more than 90 000 tons of batteries end up in the houshold waste stream.

Once the batteries have been collected they have to be sorted by chemistry in order to recycle them.  The battery manufacturers together with the local collection systems have invested heavily in latest technology to ensure a high degree of sorting accuracy.  Only if the batteries are sorted correctly they can be recycled properly. Recycling of all kind of batteries is technically possible today.

Sorting and recycling rates of the collected batteries increase every year and do not represent a major problem any more.  In Germany for example 88 per cent of the collected batteries in 2006 have been recycled and only 12 per cent had to be land filled.

SANYO has actively contributed to the constitutions of collection systems and is permanently supporting improvements in collection, sorting and recycling of spent batteries. All batteries sold by SANYO can be recycled. 

How can the environment be protected from any damage by batteries?

• Avoiding garbage by utilizing reusable batteries
  The easiest way to avoid any damage to the environment is to avoid any garbage.
  A product, which is not produced, packaged and transported, can not damage the environment. 
  Therefore the consumers should understand the advantage of a reusable product versus a
  disposable product also at batteries.
  
  Last but not least are batteries electrical energy in cans and it is not necessary to throw away the can,
  once the can is empty. It rather makes sense to fill the can again with energy and use it again and again. 
  Such a reusable can for electrical energy exists. It is called rechargeable battery. 
  Eneloop is such a rechargeable battery, which can be charged 1000 times, before its performance comes to an end. 
  This means, that one eneloop saves the garbage of 999 disposable batteries. 
  
  
• Usage of environmentally friendly materials
  The second way to protect the environment is to use environmentally friendly materials for the product and the packaging. 
  Eneloop is a rechargeable battery using latest Ni-MH technology. It does not contain any cadmium and in comparison
  to other Ni-MH batteries less cobalt.
  
  Also the packaging material has been chosen with care. The blister package is made of PET, which is fully recyclable
  and widely used for beverage bottles. 
  
  
• Return and recycling
  The third way to protect the environment is to return spent batteries to collection points rather than throwing them in the houshold garbage barrel. Only returned batteries can be collected and only collected batteries can be sorted and recycled.
  Of course also a spent eneloop should be returned to a battery collection point.  
  
  
                             

                      Battery Collection Box from GRS Batterien / Germany

Further Information

Further information about battery-collection and battery-recycling can be found here: 

	RECHARGE : www.rechargebatteries.org
	EPBA : www.epbaeurope.net