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“The wording of the Directive is complete. There are legal checks going on and there is some commitology [European committee work] to be done,” Robin Cloke, MD of GP Batteries told EW. “Capacity marking is the main issue we have a problem with.”
The draft Directive states that the capacity of all portable batteries will be marked on the outside, with marking details to be decided later.
No one has any problem with capacity marking on rechargeable batteries whose capacity is largely independent of usage. This issue is with disposable cells whose high internal resistance leads to capacity being a function of load current, a function which cannot usefully be distilled into a single figure.
“The aim of marking is to give consumers clarity,” said Cloke. “A single figure indicating capacity will not show that an alkaline cell will work the same as a similarly-marked rechargeable in an MP3 player, but be much worse in a digital camera.”
Alternative schemes, such as symbols to indicate suitable use, have so far been rejected by the European Commission.
In its current, and probably final form, the sale of sealed lead-acid batteries has not been banned, allowing their continued used in, for example, fire and burglar alarms.
