Abstract
Current lifestyles using various types of electronic equipment rely on the use of batteries and collection of waste batteries is an important issue. We investigated collection and recycling schemes for waste batteries in Denmark and Switzerland and characterized these schemes, focusing on material flow, monetary flow, and information flow through literature searchs and interviews. We then compared characteristics of the European systems with those of Japan. The European countries were found to collect not only rechargeable batteries but also non-rechargeable batteries and the collection costs were included in the price of batteries. The role of municipalities in collection was much larger than that of Japan, and municipalities were compensated for the collection costs by producers. Based on these observations, we have suggested seven institutional points to promote the collection and recycling of waste batteries in Japan.
