Why batteries must be kept out of the municipal waste stream and responsibility must be allocated across the entire product life cycle
Chlewnica Should Shift the Focus of the Debate
The fire at the Waste Management Facility in Chlewnica in August 2026 should serve as an impetus to change the way the law approaches battery-related risks. Around 200 rescuers and firefighters took part in the response, which lasted five days. Four halls, sorting machinery and the administrative building were destroyed by the fire. The losses were estimated at approximately PLN 40 million. One of the hypotheses considered was that a rechargeable battery had ended up in the waste and was subsequently crushed by a baler at the sorting facility, causing the fire [1].
This hypothesis has, of course, not been definitively confirmed as the cause of the fire. Nevertheless, particular attention should be paid to the mechanism by which the risk materialises. A battery may pose no danger during collection, transport or transfer, with the hazard emerging only during mechanical processing. The facility then becomes the place where the damage occurs, although not necessarily the place where its root cause originated.
The recycling company is also a victim: it is left without machinery or the ability to operate, incurs the costs of rebuilding the facility, and risks losing contracts and, in most cases, numerous jobs. As a consequence of the fire at the Waste Management Facility in Chlewnica, an alternative means of managing approximately 400 tonnes of waste per day had to be found immediately, since, for obvious reasons, the waste could no longer be sent to the Chlewnica facility. [2]
The First De Lege Ferenda Proposal: Keep Batteries Out of the Municipal Waste Stream
The fire at the Waste Management Facility in Chlewnica should not merely prompt a search for an answer to the question, “how should a sorting facility be equipped so that it can locate every battery?” Above all, it should bring another question to the fore: “why did the battery end up in municipal waste in the first place?”
Poland should establish a return system for batteries and battery-containing devices that makes the presence of batteries in the municipal waste stream an exceptional occurrence. A deposit, refundable charge or return incentive could motivate users to return batteries. A spent battery must have sufficient value to the consumer that they will not simply throw it in the bin, while the return process should be straightforward and intuitive.
Poland’s recently introduced deposit return scheme for packaging demonstrates that the law can genuinely change the path taken by waste. The effects of introducing the scheme quickly became visible. PET bottles and aluminium cans—fractions with significant commercial value—began disappearing from municipal waste facilities. Representatives of the municipal waste sector point out that this affects the economics of such facilities. [3] In the case of the batteries discussed in this article, the legislature should seek an analogous outcome, but for the opposite reason: what should disappear from facilities is not a valuable raw material, but an uncontrolled source of fire risk.
A Thirty-Zloty Deposit: The Mechanism Exists, but Requires Review
Polish law already provides for a deposit charge on automotive batteries and lead-acid accumulators. If a buyer purchasing a new product does not hand over a spent battery, the seller charges PLN 30 per item. [4] This is an important starting point, since incentives for returns—particularly economic ones—are not foreign to Polish law. The question is: how strong must the incentive be to work? The PLN 30 amount has remained unchanged in the regulations for many years. [5] The mere fact that its nominal value has not changed does not, of course, prove that it is ineffective, but it does justify examining whether it still provides a meaningful incentive to return a battery. The amount should reflect multiple factors, including data on return rates, product value, battery type and the costs of safe collection. It should also take into account the risks posed by improper management and be subject to periodic indexation. Different economic instruments may be needed for other battery categories.
A Processing Facility Cannot Extract Every Battery
Expecting the facility operator to find every battery disregards technological realities. A battery may be concealed in many ways—it may be inside a phone, toy, power tool, electric toothbrush, small household appliance, bicycle or scooter. It may be dirty, deformed, unmarked or permanently built into a product in a way that makes it entirely impossible to locate.
A sorting facility handles a waste stream measured in tonnes. Detection technologies, thermal monitoring, acceptance procedures and training reduce the risk, but can never guarantee a 100% detection rate. The law should not turn a duty of due care into an obligation to achieve a result that is technically impossible. Users also influence the level of risk, because discarding a battery—or a device containing one—in mixed waste may set in motion a chain of events that ultimately leads to a fire. However, a system intended to minimise this risk cannot be based on appeals alone. Consumers need clear information, an easily accessible return point and a meaningful economic incentive.
The Lack of Fire Data as a Systemic Problem
Poland lacks a uniform public register that would make it possible to establish reliably how many fires at sorting facilities, waste treatment plants, in refuse collection vehicles and at waste storage sites were in fact caused by batteries. Following the fire in Chlewnica, a local government representative noted that similar cases involving fires in refuse collection vehicles and facilities were known. [6] Yet there are still no national statistics capable of raising awareness of the existing hazard. It is therefore essential to report battery-related incidents, distinguishing between confirmed, probable and undetermined causes. Only then will it be possible to measure reliably the scale of the problem, the costs to the industry and the effectiveness of new regulations.
This is not the first instance in which waste-management practice has exposed the consequences of gaps in existing regulations. In an earlier paper on waste storage and criminal liability, I drew attention to a situation in which the law required an undertaking to store waste in compliance with environmental protection requirements and safeguards for human life and health, while the detailed implementing standard envisaged by the authorisation in Article 25(7) of the Waste Act was not laid down until the Regulation of the Minister for Climate of 11 September 2020. [12]
Today’s battery problem is different, although the underlying systemic mechanism is similar. The processor is expected to ensure that the process is completely safe, even though a product may arrive at its facility whose presence in the wrong waste stream was determined much earlier—by the way the product was designed, how distribution and collection were organised, and the user’s conduct. If the state does not provide a sufficiently robust mechanism for keeping batteries out of municipal waste, it should not treat the final participant in the chain as responsible for every earlier deficiency in the functioning system.
The common conclusion remains the same: the scope of responsibility should bear a rational relationship to the actual ability to prevent harm. The legislature should not only define duties and sanctions, but also create instruments that enable market participants to comply with those duties in practice.
The European Union: Traceability Must Lead to Accountability
Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 lays the foundations for the digital traceability of batteries. From 18 February 2027, batteries for light means of transport, industrial batteries with a capacity above 2 kWh and electric vehicle batteries will be required to have an electronic passport. The passport should include information about the model and data specific to the individual battery. Some of this information is intended to facilitate, among other things, dismantling, repair, remanufacturing, second-life use and recycling. [7] Directive (EU) 2024/2853 on liability for defective products covers the manufacturer of a defective product and the manufacturer of a defective component, as well as the importer in certain circumstances. An entity that substantially modifies a product outside the manufacturer’s control and subsequently makes it available on the market is treated as a manufacturer. [8]
These regulations should be read together. Traceability without accountability remains merely an information system, while accountability without traceability may be difficult to enforce.
Germany, the United Kingdom and California: Solutions Worth Drawing On
Germany, Poland’s western neighbour, retains a deposit on starter batteries: Section 19 of the Batterierecht-Durchführungsgesetz (BattDG) provides for EUR 7.50 if a user purchasing a new battery does not return the old one. [9] The amount itself is not a model for Poland—the important point is the combination of a deposit with a separate route for handling spent batteries and producer responsibility.
In the United Kingdom, producers finance the collection, treatment and recycling of waste batteries. Larger producers of portable batteries participate in battery compliance schemes, while retailers selling at least 32 kg of portable batteries per year must provide a free collection point. [10]
California provides a particularly interesting example. SB 1215 brought within the recycling programme products containing batteries that users cannot easily remove with ordinary tools. Significantly, CalRecycle expressly identifies the reduction of battery fires and injuries to waste-management workers, and keeping batteries out of the ordinary waste stream, as objectives. Since 1 January 2026, consumers in California have paid a recycling fee when purchasing covered products, and those products are subject to disclosure requirements concerning the manufacturer and battery chemistry. [11]
Five Key De Lege Ferenda Proposals
- Keeping batteries and battery-powered devices out of the municipal waste stream. A universal, convenient return system, financed primarily by producers placing products on the market, should be established, using a sufficiently strong deposit, refundable charge, return incentive or another equivalent instrument.
- Restructuring the deposit-charge system and indexing it periodically. It should be assessed whether the current PLN 30 amount is effective. The mechanism for increasing it should be based on actual figures and statistics.
- Extending producer responsibility to cover justified fire-safety costs: safe logistics, procedures for handling damaged batteries, education, identification and prevention.
- A national register of battery-related fires and incidents, recording the type of waste, battery category, cause and consequences and—where possible—the manufacturer, importer and the product’s route into the waste stream.
- Responsibility proportionate to control over the risk. The producer is responsible for design and information; the system operator for the availability of collection; the user for properly handing over waste, provided they have a genuine opportunity to act correctly; and the recycler for organising its own processes and responding to hazards that it could reasonably identify. The mere fact that a fire occurred at a facility is not enough—the precise cause must still be thoroughly investigated.
A fire at a sorting facility is the final link in a much longer chain. If a battery has been poorly designed or improperly labelled, if there is no convenient return system offering a meaningful economic incentive, and if the user throws it into an ordinary bin, it must be recognised that the risk arises long before the battery crosses the facility gate. For this reason, following the events in Chlewnica, the legislature should not focus on imposing further safety requirements on the facility. The key is to create a system that prevents the battery from reaching the recycler at all. The deposit return scheme has already demonstrated that a particular product can be effectively removed from the waste stream. In the case of batteries, what is at stake is not only the recycling rate, but above all the safety of people, facilities and the entire waste-management system.
The main measure of success for a new regulation should not be how many tonnes of batteries can subsequently be recovered from waste. What matters is how many of them never enter that waste in the first place. Only then will the burden of ensuring safety shift from the place where the flames appear to the point where they can actually be prevented.
Notes and Sources
[1] Radio Gdańsk, “Could a battery have caused the fire at the Chlewnica facility?” (original title: „Bateria przyczyną pożaru zakładu w Chlewnicy?”), 20 August 2026; see also the Zawsze Pomorze report cited by the author.
[2] Radio Gdańsk, “Waste problem following the fire in Chlewnica” (original title: „Problem z odpadami po pożarze w Chlewnicy”), 18 August 2026.
[3] Ministerstwo Klimatu i Środowiska [Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment], announcement concerning the deposit return scheme and municipal
recycling levels; the scheme was launched on 1 October 2025; see also industry analyses of the scheme’s impact
on municipal waste facilities.
[4] Ustawa z 24.04.2009 r. o bateriach i akumulatorach [Act of 24 April 2009 on batteries and accumulators], Article 55(1)—deposit charge of PLN 30.
[5] Earlier regulations concerning lead-acid accumulators also used
the PLN 30 amount; see the texts of the legislation available in ELI.
[6] Radio Gdańsk, “Was this the cause of the fire in Chlewnica? ‘We know of many such cases’” (original title: „To przyczyna pożaru w Chlewnicy? «Znamy wiele takich przypadków»”),
21 August 2026.
[7] Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 of the European Parliament and of the Council, Articles 77–78 and Annex XIII.
[8] Directive (EU) 2024/2853 of the European Parliament and of the Council, Article 8.
[9] Germany: Batterierecht-Durchführungsgesetz (BattDG), Section 19.
[10] GOV.UK, “Waste batteries: producer responsibility” and “Battery waste: retailer and distributor
responsibilities”, updated in 2026.
[11] California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), “SB 1215 Covered
Battery-Embedded Products”, as at 2026.
[12] A. Trocka, paper on waste storage and the criminal liability
of an undertaking before the entry into force of the Regulation of the Minister for Climate of 11 September 2020 on
detailed requirements for waste storage; see Article 25(7) of the Waste Act
and the Regulation of 11 September 2020 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1742).