California imposes new fee on battery products

from Alejandra Reyes-VelardeCalMatters

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Starting Jan. 1, Californians will pay a new fee every time they buy a product with a non-removable battery — whether it’s a power tool, a PlayStation or even a singing greeting card.

The 1.5 percent surcharge, capped at $15, expands a recycling program that has been quietly collecting old computer monitors and televisions for two decades. The change is the result of Senate Bill 1215, authored by former state Sen. Josh Newman, a Democrat who represented parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino. It was signed into law in 2022.

Consumers will pay the fee when they buy any product with a built-in battery, whether it’s rechargeable or not. Experts say many of these products end up in the trash. In his final analysis, The California Department of Recycling and Resource Recovery estimates that about 7,300 tons of batteries end up in landfills illegally or accidentally.

California enacted e-waste fees with computer monitors and televisions in 2003. The fee has worked by keeping dangerous screens out of landfills and building better systems for proper disposal. But over the past 20 years, e-waste has continued to evolve.

Powerful lithium batteries have become cheaper and more accessible as demand for the technology has increased. They now power everyday products, from cell phones and AirPods to power tools and toys.

“This stuff is everywhere. It’s ubiquitous,” said Joe La Mariana, executive director of RethinkWaste, which manages waste services in 12 cities in San Mateo County, a co-sponsor of the legislation.

They also, under certain circumstances, pose a risk. Under harsh conditions in recycling and waste facilities, lithium-ion batteries can burst into flames and even explode.

“Paying a small inspection fee to fund proper collection is much cheaper than million-dollar fires, higher insurance premiums and rate hikes going back to the communities,” said Doug Kobold, executive director of the California Produce Stewardship Council, which co-sponsored the legislation.

A growing problem

In 2016, in the city of San Carlos in San Mateo County, a lithium-ion battery caused a large fire at the Shoreway Environmental Center’s recycling facility. It shut down the plant for four months and caused $8.5 million in damage. RethinkWaste, a regional waste management agency, oversees this facility. As a result of the fire, the insurance premium went from $180,000 to $3.2 million a year, La Mariana said; payers ultimately bear that cost.

This fire catalyzed the waste management agency to seek solutions to the growing battery fire problem.

“As a publicly owned facility, every bit of that property is owned and paid for by our 430,000 ratepayers,” La Mariana said. “So we have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain the integrity of these assets. But we also, on a human level, have a very big responsibility for the safety of our colleagues and co-workers.”

Battery fires in waste and recycling facilities are a daily hazard. Experts say they are understatedpossibly because facilities fear oversight or increases in insurance premiums.

And batteries can catch fire anywhere. Earlier this year, two girls were hospitalized after electric scooter caught fire in an apartment building in Los Angeles. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, they are close to two battery fires on American flights every week.

Switching to clean energy brings dangers to the battery

The fee, which consumers will pay in the new year, is just one part of the state’s evolving response to the emerging risk of lithium-ion batteries.

Single-use plastic vapes are exempt from the new law because the Department of Toxic Substances Control has raised concerns about collection and recycling systems operating with nicotine, a dangerous substance, said Nick Lapis, an advocate with Californians Against Waste, which co-sponsored the legislation. They are also the fastest growing source of lithium-ion battery waste.

“If you imagine someone is a pack-a-day smoker, that means they’re throwing away a lithium-ion battery device every day,” Lapis said.

Last year, members of the assembly Jackie Irwin and Laurie Wilson introduced Assembly Bill 762a law that would ban single-use plastic vapes entirely. Lapis says he expects the Legislature to address the risk of vapes this year.

Large lithium-ion batteries present a major hazard of a different kind.

During the Los Angeles fires, dangerous lithium-ion batteries, including from electric vehicles, were abandoned — leading to a major cleanup operation by the Environmental Protection Agency.

And almost a year ago, a fire burned in a battery storage facility in Moss Landing for two days, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people. The facility’s Monterey County neighbors have complained of nausea after the fire and a recent study found toxic metals in the nearby marshes.

In 2024, Newsom created a joint of state agencies, including the California Air Resources Board and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to explore safety solutions for battery storage technologies. New CalFire regulations for battery storage systems will take effect this year.

Finding ways to properly dispose of batteries and their lithium in the waste stream is critical as the nation moves away from fossil fuels, said Meg Slattery, a scientist with Earthjustice.

“The next question becomes … where do we source materials and think about what happens to that when we no longer use it, which I think we’re traditionally not good at thinking about as a society,” she said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.