Batteries – Notification

General information

Notifications about the portable and automotive batteries on the market and about the respective waste batteries taken back and/or collected as well as reused and/or recycled must be transmitted electronically.

Persons subject to notification obligations

In the Batterienverordnung (Batteries Ordinance) a distinction is made between the following roles:

• Producers (importers)
  These are all persons with headquarters or business location in Austria who, irrespective of the selling technique used (including by means of distance sales), place for the first time portable or automotive or industrial batteries or accumulators on the market in Austria for commercial purposes.
• Self-importers
  Self-importers means final consumers who purchase portable batteries or automotive batteries from abroad for their business operations and in whose businesses such batteries become waste.
• Collection and recovery systems for waste batteries
  These are officially approved systems which ensure the collection and recovery of those waste electrical devices for which contracts with producers or importers have been concluded.
• Operators of collection points (collectors of waste batteries)
  These are collectors of waste electrical equipment according to section 24a of the Abfallwirtschaftsgesetz (Waste Management Act – AWG) and in particular operators of municipal collection points.
• Processors of waste batteries
  These are processors for material and thermal recycling and/or disposal.

Enterprises affected

• Producers (importers)
• self-importers
• collection and recovery systems for waste batteries
• operators of collection points (collectors of waste batteries)
• processors of waste batteries

Deadlines

• Producers of portable batteries:
  They must report electronically, via edm.gv.at, to the coordinating agency of the masses of batteries placed on the market in Austria in the respective calendar quarter until seven weeks after the expiry of the quarter to be reported, if this doesn't take place by a commissioned collection and recovery system.
• Collection and recovery systems:
  They must report electronically for each calendar quarter a total sum, respectively of the masses of portable batteries placed on the market or imported for the purpose of own consumption by their participants until seven weeks after the expiry of the quarter to be reported. By means of this notification the respective notification requirement of the producers participating in this recovery and collection system is fulfilled.
• All producers as well as self-importers:
  They must, for the previous calendar year, report the collected, recycled, and exported masses of waste portable and automotive batteries, via edm.gv.at, to the coordinating agency until the 10^th of April of each calendar year.
• All waste collectors (in particular communities or associations of communities) which take over waste batteries from a final user and don't give back these devices to the producers:
  They must report for these devices, via edm.gv.at, until the 10^th of April of each calendar year on the collected, recycled, and exported waste equipment to the coordinating agency.
• All waste processors processing waste batteries:
  They must make the recycling data available to the respective collector and/or processor subject to the notification requirement

Competent authority

• The Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (→ BMLUK)
• The Elektroaltgeräte Koordinierungsstelle Austria (→ EAK) ^{German text} (Austrian Coordinating Agency for Waste Electrical Equipment)

Procedure

To submit one's notification, registration in the electronic master data register is required, which must be applied for on edm.gv.at(→ BMLUK).

After the registration and the login (entry of the access data), the required notifications to edm.gv.at can be carried out.

edm.gv.at enables apart from the entry of the electrical equipment placed on the market by the producers also the collection from the about 2,000 registered collection points in Austria, which are allocated to a collection and recovery system via a collection coordination of the EAK.

Costs and fees

No tariffs or duties have to be paid.

Legal bases

• Abfallwirtschaftsgesetz (Waste Management Act – AWG)
• Batterienverordnung (Batteries Ordinance)

Link to form

Registration is by electronic means via edm.gv.at (→ BMLUK).

Entrepreneurs registered in the Business Service Portal USP have the possibility to use this and many other online procedures^{German text} with one single logging into the USP. More detailed information on the registration in the USP is available in the online guidance on USP registration^{German text}.