HB2496 – Providing for responsible environmental management of used batteries.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Mead (D; 44th District; Everett & Marysville)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 3 at 1:30 PM.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would make producers responsible for creating and funding a product stewardship system for dealing with all used batteries under twenty-five pounds (with a few exceptions). The bill would require users to drop off used batteries at “free, continuous, convenient, visible, and accessible” sites, and prohibit putting them in containers for mixed recycling, landfills, incinerators, or waste-to-energy plants. (The system would include education and outreach to encourage participation.) Batteries from producers who weren’t participating couldn’t be legally sold in the state.

Producers could set up one or more battery stewardship management organizations. An organization would have to have a plan approved by the Department of Ecology. Plans have to include performance goals for target collection rates and targets for the percentages of materials recovered through recycling. (They must collect and provide for the end-of-life management of batteries in an amount roughly equivalent to the national market share of the batteries of producers participating in the plan.)

There have to be collection sites for batteries under 12 pounds within fifteen miles for at least 95% of residents and at least one additional site in areas with over 30,000 people, as well as locations in all counties and tribal lands, and in special locations like parks and on islands. There have to be at least twenty-five collection sites in the state for hefty batteries between twelve and  twenty-five pounds, with reasonable geographic dispersion, including one in each county with more than 200,000 people.

Plans have to manage batteries by prioritizing prevention and waste reduction first, then reuse when that’s appropriate, and then recycling. They can only deal with batteries in other ways, like landfilling them, after a year, and after demonstrating to Ecology that these other higher priority options aren’t technologically feasible or economically practical.

Plans have to include various education and outreach activities  for consumers, retailers, and the operators of collection sites, and management organizations have to survey the public about their awareness of the requirements at the beginning of the program in 2024, and every five years after that, sharing the results with Ecology. They have to submit an annual report to Ecology, including an independent financial audit, data about battery collections and  recovered materials, and a variety of other information about the program, including steps for reducing the amount they haven’t recycled if that’s relevant.

After issuing a warning, Ecology can impose fines of up to $1,000 a day for violations of the law and of up to $10,000 a day for intentional, knowing, or negligent violations. In addition, management organizations can seek reimbursement from another battery stewardship organization that fails to deal with its batteries in an amount roughly equivalent to the national battery market share of its producers . In fact, organizations are authorized to sue producers who are not participating in an approved plan for their expenses in dealing with that producer’s batteries, and if there’s more than one management organization they can sue others that are not dealing with their producers’ share of the used batteries for their expenses in collecting and dealing with those.

Details –
Producers selling less than 5,000 batteries a year in the state don’t have to participate.
The bill requires batteries to have labels disclosing their chemistry and producer; it doesn’t cover batteries sealed in products.

Plans have to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Ecology, which is to collect a fee from producers to cover the cost of administering the program. It’s to maintain a public list of producers and brands that can be legally sold because they’re in the program.

The bill amends various sections of the Public Records Act about limits on the disclosure of financial, commercial and proprietary information to cover this program, and it authorizes the Pollution Control Hearings Board to deal with appeals.