Me and my colleagues recently studied one of the oldest centralized collection programs for waste portable batteries, named also as, single organization model, which is in operation in Belgium since 1996. The collective battery management program is monitored by the Belgian battery organization (BEBAT).
The operation of BEBAT is financed by a government mandated fee or levy, which is set by law and is included in the price of the battery. Consequently, it is paid by consumers.
Although, the BEBAT achieved 84 % of public participation in 2012 and a dense network of collection points (on average one active collection point for 450 residents), the collection ratio of portable waste batteries has remained stagnant at around 50 %. The data showed that the dynamic problems present in the sector: despite increasing public awareness the collection rate is not increasing.
Therefore we developed a system dynamics model to sheds light on the structure of the system and the system’s behavior. The model allows examining how the physical processes and information flows interrelate in the structure of a dynamic system, and how this structure generates dynamic behavior over time.
We found out that important feedbacks are missing in the collection scheme:
- the level of the levy on the price is not linked to the achieved collection goal.
- effectiveness of the information campaign and the costs related to these awareness-increasing activities are not linked.
The presented model can be adapted for other types of batteries’ collection models. In the context of the Europe Union the developed model can be used by member states to align with the collection targets set in the Directive 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators.
Our model and results are presented in Journal of Cleaner Production (Elsevier) under title “Dynamic modelling of a collection scheme of waste portable batteries for ecological and economic sustainability”.
What feedbacks have you found missing in other principal models of collection schemes (state fund models, competing organizations models, and models without organizations (more details about principal models can be found in the supplement))? What are your thoughts and observations?
Article Dynamic modelling of a collection scheme of waste portable b...
Very interesting finding Lelde this clearly shows that the levy's and taxation alone cant help. certainly these batteries are discarded and where are they ultimately ending up in landfills? along with other municipal wastes? if so the end point segregation becomes an important point as 50% of batteries can be recovered there the incentive be transferred to these sources who can recover and bring it back.
Very interesting contribution. You can find specific information about Valencian waste management plans in the following link (in Spanish)
http://www.citma.gva.es/web/calidad-ambiental/residuos
Unfortunately, no specific technologies are applied on our waste treatment plants to recover Ni-Cd batteries. Therefore, concentrations of heavy metals are found on our landfills leachate. So, definitely we can say that at least a certain percentage of these batteries end up their life on our landfills.
Dear all, thank you for your answers. I hope that our research can be a good building block for the development of more transparent waste management system.
Couple of points I would like to add:
- the rest of batteries (not collected) are mostly going to municipal solid waste. In Latvia municipal solid waste is landfilled. EU directives obliges to introduce the units for segregation of waste materials, but, as far as I know, currently in Latvia these units are not in place yet or installed and struggling with technical difficulties.
- from sustainability point of view it is always better to properly collect waste at the source, in this case at the end-consumers; therefore I believe that specific policy should be devoted to create awareness of the problems that waste batteries create to living conditions and health. I observed some kind of trend that those collection schemes which involved school children usually got batter collection ratios much faster. I believe it is because children are more elastic to the development of new habits - in this case collection of waste batteries; and finally children involve all family members.
- transparency is also an issues, because when spending and income of waste management system is not available to public, this destroys trust and willingness to take part in separate collection.
Dear all,
I am pleased to inform you that the final version of our article is now available online.
There is free access to our article valid for 50 days, until January 25, 2015 by following link: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Q9Rx3QCo9AcRt
No sign up or registration is needed - just click and read!
Best regards, Lelde Timma
Article Dynamic modelling of a collection scheme of waste portable b...
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