FDP Parliamentary Group inquires into the dangers of lithium batteries among other things as waste and in German households
FDP Parliamentary Group inquires into the dangers of lithium batteries among other things as waste and in German households On March 28, 2019 in the parliamentary news of the German Bundestag, the request of the FDP faction was mentioned.
FDP Parliamentary Group inquires into the dangers of lithium batteries among other things as waste and in German households
On March 28, 2019 in the parliamentary news of the German Bundestag, the request of the FDP faction was mentioned. Here is the link to the note:
https://www.bundestag.de/hib#url=L3ByZXNzZS9oaWIvNjMyMTY4LTYzMjE2OA==&mod=mod454590
In the small question referred to in the parliamentary news, the FDP Parliamentary Group asks the following perfectly well-founded questions.
1. Does the Federal Government have any knowledge of the causes of fires in waste treatment plants?
If so, how many are the result of accidents involving lithium batteries (please provide additional information by date
and location)?
2. What is the Federal Government's estimate of the damage caused by the fires?
3. Does the Federal Government know about fires caused by lithium batteries in households of the Federal Republic of
Germany (if so, please list by location and date)?
4. What measures does the Federal Government plan to educate the population about the dangers of lithium batteries?
5. To what extent is the market share of lithium batteries to the knowledge of the Federal Government (please a list by
year (2014-2018), industry, total weight and share of total battery volume)?
6. To what extent is the Federal Government aware of the share of lithium batteries in the total amount of used batteries
in 2018?
7. What measures is the Federal Government planning to recycle lithium batteries as a strongly growing form of energy
storage?
8. Is the Federal Government planning a change to the battery law to counter the dangers of lithium batteries?
If so, what specific changes are planned and do these plans include separate monitoring of lithium batteries?
Here is the detailed text of the preliminary draft of the small request (printed matter 19/8680), which was submitted to the Federal Government on March 22, 2019, dated 06 March 2019 and signed by Christian Linder and faction:
http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/086/1908680.pdf
We can definitely support this request. Because it is really time that more official attention is paid to lithium batteries.
Even if the focus of our inquiries was more on informing the population, especially with regard to cheap products and plagiarism on lithium cells and lithium batteries, which were not manufactured in accordance with the regulations. We recommend to purchase lithium cells and lithium batteries only directly from the original manufacturer or through platforms that can provide the following information professionally and quickly on demand for all lithium cells and lithium batteries:
+ a confirmation that the lithium cells or the lithium batteries were manufactured according to the quality management program described in the transport regulations.
+ A declaration of conformity that lithium cells or lithium batteries have successfully passed the UN Test Series 38.3.
For lithium ion cells with more than 20 Wh and lithium ion batteries with more than 100 Wh or lithium metal cells with more than 1 g lithium content and lithium metal batteries with more than 2 g lithium, the confirmation of the following requirements:
+ A confirmation that each lithium cell and lithium battery incorporates a safety venting device or is designed to preclude a violent rupture under normal conditions of carriage.
+ A confirmation that each lithium cell and lithium battery is equipped with an effective means of preventing external short circuits
+ Each lithium battery contains cells and each battery contains series of cells connected in parallel equipped with effective means necessary to prevent dangerous reverse current flow (e.g. diodes, fuses, etc.)
And we would very much welcome increased control and prosecution of companies and manufacturers that bring such cheap products and counterfeit products to market. Perhaps the request of the FDP parliamentary group is indeed as a first step to take the issue of lithium cells and lithium batteries more seriously.
However we do not consider more regulations to be of any help, since in our opinion the existing ones are completely sufficient. Yet worldwide compliance must finally be insistet upon and in case of non-compliance as a consequence high penalties must be imposed. Because there are many large and small manufacturers, companies that provide battery solutions and assembling of batteries, equipment manufacturers and trading platforms that meticulously comply with the rules. The lack of consistency in the law enforcement of companies that deliberately circumvent the rules in order to maximize their profit on selling cheap manufactured products causes financial damage to those companies/platforms that are regulation compliant.
With our checklist articles we offer our customers all the information they need for a compliant shipping preparation, packaging, marking, labelling and documentation. The purpose of our portal is to make it easy to comply with the transport regulations. Because we want lithium cells and lithium batteries to reach their destination safely and we don´t want them to pose a danger to humans, materials or the environment neither in a private household nor in a company or during recycling/disposal.
And also for private persons who want to ship lithium cells and lithium batteries, we have developed a simple query:
https://www.lithium-batterie-service.de/en/private-persons-return-shipments/
We have an overview on our website on the regular disposal of lithium cells and lithium batteries. This can be found under this link:
https://www.lithium-batterie-service.de/en/disposal/
If you would like to know more about the quality management program, which requires all lithium cells and lithium batteries (including small series and pre-production prototypes), then we have summarized the information for you under this link:
https://www.lithium-batterie-service.de/en/quality-management-program
And the regulations on the UN test series 38.3 can be found here:
https://www.lithium-batterie-service.de/en/un-38.3-test-series
