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EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

environment.ec.europa.eu

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Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#11

Post by wolvoleo »

shablulman wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I hate that kind of thing though when it would come to smaller batteries. This battery passport prevents the user from replacing their car battery themselves easily. Which is entirely in contradiction to this legislation's objective for smaller devices which aims at making self-service easier. But it also links devices to their battery meaning one can not be recycled apart from the other!

It's already causing problems for me there. I often repair small electronic devices, or I remove the battery and repurpose them. For example I use some old tablets and phones with the (often bloated) battery removed, and replaced by a DC-DC converter set to 4 volts or so. This way the device 'thinks' there's a battery. Because most devices with an originally integrated battery will not even power up on USB power if they think the battery is not present or deep discharged. And bloated batteries are unsafe to keep on a charger 24/7 so I remove them.

However the local recycling point is getting increasingly difficult about accepting loose Li-Ion and Li-Po cells. I put them in individual ziplock bags and tape over the contacts but they seem to view them as industrial waste or something. They sent me to the central disposal unit far from the city center but even there they were very hesitant to accept them. And at one point they accused me of running a business because I had 5 different batteries to recycle (I had saved them up because they always give me such a hassle). I think businesses have to pay for recycling or something, I don't know and don't care because I don't run a business.

This in effect stimulates 2 things: People just throwing them in the normal bin which is a waste and can cause fire. Or recycling the whole device instead which is a waste of resources if the original device can still be used.

The battery passport links the device to its battery and only 'approved' facilities can break that link so I think this is a very bad idea for smaller devices when it comes to self-repair people like me. And I will fight that with a passion.

For EVs etc I don't know how that works, I don't use cars nor care about them. But I think even there being able to work on a car at home would be a good thing no?

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#12

Post by blell »

atoav wrote: post #5

As someone who does electronic repairs I welcome this. There are too many devices where the battery is the first point of failure and it is glued in. The number of batteries I could only remove with hot air and heat due to the battery being glued in is too damn high. Heat for removal works but is always like defusing a inextinguishable bomb and takes much more time than it should. I also have rarely seen a design whe…

Gluing batteries solved the old issue where you would drop your phone and it would shut down.

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#13

Post by mentalgear »

The EU is displaying exactly the kind of political leadership we need in this topic: pro-consumer, pro-environment, and firmly against planned obsolescence. Removable batteries were the industry standard in the early days of mobile phones, and it worked perfectly. We only lost that standard when Apple’s 'walled garden' mindset infected the rest of the industry.

The amount of avoidable e-waste generated since then is unfathomable: We are talking about mountain-sized piles of discarded electronics, much of it exported to Africa and Asia. There, people (often children) burn those pieces to extract the remaining rare earths, inhaling toxic fumes in the process, while the remaining hazardous garbage is buried and left to poison the groundwater. It is an absolute moral failure that our society, and politicians beholden to Big Tech lobbyists, let this go on for so long in the name of pure profit for a few big companies at the expense of everything else.

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#14

Post by mschuster91 »

blell wrote: post #12
atoav wrote: post #5

As someone who does electronic repairs I welcome this. There are too many devices where the battery is the first point of failure and it is glued in. The number of batteries I could only remove with hot air and heat due to the battery being glued in is too damn high. Heat for removal works but is always like defusing a inextinguishable bomb and takes much more time than it should. I also have rarely seen a design whe…

Gluing batteries solved the old issue where you would drop your phone and it would shut down.

Adding a tiny strip of glue to the battery so it doesn't slosh around in the case is not a problem.

The problem is that you need heat to open up the device itself (all that is between the battery and the hot air gun is about 1mm of glass), followed by a bath in isopropanol and lots and lots of twaddling around with tweezers and spatulas to get the old glue residue removed from both the display and the case (risking damaging either in the process), followed by really annoying meticulous work to place a new glue sheet exactly onto the case (or display) to make sure it fits again. Oh and you always risk cracking the display while removing it.

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#15

Post by omnimus »

blell wrote: post #12
atoav wrote: post #5

As someone who does electronic repairs I welcome this. There are too many devices where the battery is the first point of failure and it is glued in. The number of batteries I could only remove with hot air and heat due to the battery being glued in is too damn high. Heat for removal works but is always like defusing a inextinguishable bomb and takes much more time than it should. I also have rarely seen a design whe…

Gluing batteries solved the old issue where you would drop your phone and it would shut down.

It's not so much about them being glued in but that nowdays they seem to be glued behind display and al the rest of the phone while there is no access from the back.

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#16

Post by cyrusmg »

atoav wrote: post #4
cyrusmg wrote: post #2

It came up recently in local news. I wonder how they force that for earphones...

I am not sure if thst is really a problem. Batteries of hearing aids have been replaceable for a while now. There appears to be a few reason to become excempt from the rules, e.g. medical reasons (if it is in your body safety is more crucial than removability of the battery). So who knows what Apples lawyers will do with this.

I never looked into hearing aids - would the interchangeability affect weight ?

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#18

Post by athrowaway3z »

wolvoleo wrote: post #11
shablulman wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I hate that kind of thing though when it would come to smaller batteries. This battery passport prevents the user from replacing their car battery themselves easily. Which is entirely in contradiction to this legislation's objective for smaller devices which aims at making self-service easier. But it also links devices to their battery meaning one can not be recycled apart from the other! It's already causing problem…

I have no clue what you're trying to say.

The whole point is that people don't throw away their original device.

Yours situation seems rather niche, and it sounds like you might be going out of 'business' while at the same time allowing 1000x times the number of people to want to do dummy-self-repairs (i.e. replace their batteries) even if it's with a bit more theater about who is licensed.

The total number of people means much more demand - even for what you cook-up manually as not-a-business.

Re: EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 (2023)

#20

Post by mentalgear »

relistan wrote: post #8

It’s not clear to me from this, but I hope that the “removability” component of this means the end of “disposable” vapes with a fixed lithium battery installed. I can’t even count the number of these I’ve seen littering the roadside. Ideally this raises the cost of that business model enough to also eliminate some vendors from that product category (“disposable” vapes), which is primarily aimed at/used by children an…

I agree, disposable vapes are an absolute perversion. I never thought we would come to a point where throw-away "technology" (e.g. microsystems, batteries) would be acceptable like a throw-away cigarette. Absolutely wicked, and again many politicians that have been captured by the vape industry to not act against it.
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