If you make (products with) batteries available on the Belgian market as a producer or importer, you must comply with the legal extended producer responsibility This stems from the European Battery Directive 2013/1542, supplemented by federal and regional legislation in Belgium.
Does your company have to comply to the EPR? Here are your obligations:
- Register with the three regional governments.
- Submit declarations of the batteries you make available for the first time on the market.
- Guarantee scheme for batteries for which you do not pay an environmental contribution.
- Build awareness and prevention
- Organise collection to meet the legal targets, through a network covering the entire Belgian territory with ADR-compliant transport.
- Recycle, reuse or repurpose discarded batteries.
- Demonstrate recycling efficiency
- Report to authorities
You can comply with the take-back obligation legislation in two ways:
- You can submit your own application for registration and approval to the regional authorities and take responsibility for all the above obligations yourself.
- The simpler solution is to join Bebat. Bebat then takes over your obligations and relieves your company (large or small).
For all batteries subject to the environmental contribution, Bebat takes care of:
- Complying with the regional registration obligation
- Easy declaration via our online platform MyBebat
- Create awareness-building campaigns and take prevention measures
- Collection via 23,000 collection points
- Provide free collection materials
- Safe transport, storage, and processing of discarded batteries
- Ensure recycling with demonstration of recycling efficiency
- Regional reporting to the authorities
- Provide guarantee to cover the cost of the EPR
There are also batteries for which you pay an administrative contribution rather than an environmental contribution, namely:
- Large batteries > 20 kg
- Lead batteries > 3 kg
- Energy Storage Systems (ESS) in an installation ≤ 16 MWh
For these batteries, Bebat provides a tailor-made solution.
The only thing you still need to do as a Bebat participant is to submit your declaration of the batteries you put on the Belgian market via our convenient online platform MyBebat. If you put less than 10,000 batteries per year on the market, this can be done annually. For more than 10,000 batteries per year, you must make a monthly declaration. Read our article about this: Difference between monthly and annual declaration.
Not sure if your company falls under the acceptance obligation? Take the test here!
Obligations for retailers of batteries
Then you also have some obligations:
- Take-back obligation: Taking back discarded batteries free of charge, with no purchase obligation.
- Return obligation: Return obligation of the discarded batteries to Bebat or the producer or importer.
- Build awareness: Informing customers about the types of batteries being taken back and the costs incurred by the producer or importer.
In other words, every point of sale of batteries must also be a collection point for discarded batteries.
You can comply with this obligation in two ways:
- You can organize a collection system yourself. You then take care of the correct collection, recycling, and reporting to the authorities. You are also responsible for prevention and communication and must comply with all legal standards in this regard.
- The simpler solution is to become a Bebat collection point for free. Bebat then takes over your obligations and relieves your company (large or small).
If you become a collection point at Bebat, we take care of:
- Safe collection containers;
- The collection of your discarded batteries;
- Safe transport of the batteries;
- Correct processing of the batteries;
- Professional advice.
You can register for free as a Bebat collection point at https://my.bebat.be.