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Battery Act Information

Information on the disposal of waste batteries

The following notice is addressed to those who use batteries or products with built-in batteries and do not resell them in the form delivered to them (end users):

1. Free take-back of waste batteries
Batteries must not be disposed of with household waste. You are legally obliged to return waste batteries so that proper disposal can be ensured. You can hand in waste batteries at a municipal collection point or at a local retailer. As a distributor of batteries, we too are obliged to take back waste batteries, whereby our take-back obligation is limited to waste batteries of the type that we carry or have carried as new batteries in our range. You can therefore either return waste batteries of the aforementioned type to us with sufficient postage paid, or hand them in free of charge directly at our dispatch warehouse at the address stated in the legal notice (Impressum).

2. Meaning of the battery symbols
Batteries are marked with the symbol of a crossed-out wheeled bin (see below). This symbol indicates that batteries must not be disposed of with household waste. For batteries containing more than 0.0005 percent by mass of mercury, more than 0.002 percent by mass of cadmium or more than 0.004 percent by mass of lead, the chemical symbol of the respective pollutant used appears beneath the wheeled bin symbol – where "Cd" stands for cadmium, "Pb" stands for lead, and "Hg" for mercury.

3. Vehicle batteries
When selling vehicle batteries (these are batteries intended for the starter, the lighting or the ignition of vehicles), the following special provisions apply: Pursuant to § 10 BattG (German Battery Act), the seller is obliged to charge end users a deposit of 7.50 euros including VAT per vehicle battery if, at the time of purchasing the new vehicle battery, the end user does not return a waste vehicle battery to the seller. The customer receives a deposit voucher when purchasing a vehicle battery. To obtain a refund of the deposit charged, the customer may hand in the old vehicle battery to the seller. Due to the Dangerous Goods Ordinance, shipping the old vehicle battery to the seller is not permitted. Alternatively, the customer may return the old vehicle battery to a take-back point set up by the public waste management authority. If the waste vehicle battery is not returned to the seller who charged the deposit, the party entitled to collect it under § 11 (3) BattG who takes back the waste vehicle battery is obliged, upon request, to confirm the take-back to the end user in writing or electronically without refunding the deposit. In this case, the customer receives a refund of the deposit charged from the seller, provided that they present the seller with written or electronic proof of return pursuant to § 10 (1) sentence 4 BattG that is no more than two weeks old at the time of presentation.