Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-19-Speech-1-164"
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"en.20040419.13.1-164"2
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"Madam President, batteries form part of our everyday lives. In fact it is fair to say that the development of portable electric power, particularly rechargeable electric power, has revolutionised our lives.
Each one of us is probably carrying two or three batteries – in our phones, in our watches, in our car key fobs and maybe there are even one or two heart pacemakers in this Chamber. Batteries have made a contribution to safety. Cordless power tools have made building sites much safer and often in the case of power failure we rely on batteries for back-up lighting or emergency power. Recently I was at a nuclear power station where they have a battery the size of a building which provides the back-up power in the event of a power cut.
I would like to congratulate the Commission on its proposal which is balanced and in proportion to the problem. In particular, I congratulate the Commission on the way it addresses the problem of waste.
Some countries like Belgium have successfully removed batteries from the waste stream. We should take care to look at the cost of this. In Belgium it costs at least twice as much to collect the batteries as the actual value of the batteries themselves. We need to have a market-led solution so that we do not find we are collecting things just for the sake of it.
As with most waste issues in my country, the United Kingdom's record is pathetic. When adopted, I hope that the targets set by the Commission will be met and we do not repeat the situation we had with old fridges when the directive gathered dust on the shelf until it was too late to implement it in time. I also hope that the UK government will correctly fund the local authorities which are charged with the task of collecting these batteries.
I support some of the amendments. In particular, my Group supports the move not to set recovery targets based on an arbitrary number of grams – 160 grams for every country. Such a one-size-fits-all policy would be bizarre in countries such as the Baltic States where the battery market is not even half of 160 grams. To set the recovery targets based on a percentage is a much more sensible approach.
However, my Group will not support the amendments to Article 4 with regard to the bans on heavy metal. Firstly, the alternatives are not developed in every single sector. In the case of power tools in particular the alternative batteries have not performed as well and we would see tools having a much shorter life and being thrown away sooner than at present.
Secondly, in the United Kingdom we have had a number of studies on pollution looking at landfill and incineration. Although we have cadmium in the environment, the source of cadmium from batteries is not significant. If we wanted to cut back we would need to look at fossil fuels, fertilisers and the metallurgical industries.
Lastly, the timescale. Batteries which are sold now will not come into the waste stream for more than 16 years. Therefore the heavy metal ban does not solve the problem in the short term."@en1
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