Ms Harry welcomed the first speaker, Álvaro Rodríguez, Spanish Coordinator for The Climate Reality Project (ESP) who spoke on the environment and batteries.
Mr Rodriguez showed a picture of the earth from the moon and remarked how the Earth is like a “big battery, a solar battery”. But then he lamented, “how we have decided that it’s a good idea to use this battery as an open landfill without limit. Every 24 hours we put in the atmosphere more than 165 million tonnes of waste in the form of gases and this big amount of gases is changing the composition of this big battery.” Consequently, he said, the temperature of the Earth is increasing one day after the other, one year after the other.
But the good news is that “we have all the solutions we need at hand today to change the things for the future, and we have all of them related with materials, energy, recycling and the environment.” One solution, said Mr Rodriguez, is taking the energy from wind and solar power and storing it. Another challenge for the earth, he said, was mobility. With cars this is one third of the global emissions of CO2 on the planet.
“So, we have to take the production of energy and the way we move, if we attack those two things, we can really change the questions… electric cars are the new way of mobility. Every electric car of today is a battery to be recycled or reused tomorrow. The amount of batteries to be reused and recycled will increase dramatically, and we will need to have the industry, the market and all the flows of these materials to do this in a proper way.”
The next speaker was Javier Cervera Alonso, Responsible for the Energy Transition of Baleària (ESP) – a leading cargo and passenger shipping company from Spain.
He gave a presentation on the company’s two recently constructed ferries that can run on electricity. Mr Alonso spoke about EVs in the sense of electric vessels and explained that the company is using them to serve short sea routes around Spain.
The need for ferries and ships to use more electricity to reduce emission is because the shipping sector represents 3% of global emissions or 15% of transport emissions. If emissions aren’t reduced fines will have to be paid to the International Maritime Organisation. Short sea routes were one of the ways to use electric ferries because when at ports batteries can be recharged, Mr Alonso explained. And, reductions in battery sizes are also important for the ships because of the space saved and weight reduction.
The next speaker was Germán Agulló, CEO and co-founder of GDV Mobility (ESP), a lithium battery reconditioning and recycling company in Spain.
He highlighted problems that battery recyclers faced such as the high cost of technology. His presentation featured slides which showed three stages to the recycling process. First was sorting and disassembling the metal casing, wiring, nickel plated steel and the cells. The second stage saw the cells worked on to separate aluminium, copper and the black mass. Then at a third stage the black mass is purified to save cobalt, nickel, lithium with the remainder termed ‘depletion’. In November 2025, the company would have battery recycling plants to handle the black mass in Spain, he said.
The session then turned to legal matters with a presentation from Federica Guerra, Environmental Compliance and Circular Economy Specialist at Sider Rottami Adriatica SPA (ITA).
Ms Guerra spoke about the recent changes that has been made to the Basel Convention due to the introduction of the Y49 code for all e-wastes. She said that “the three biggest complexities are the risk of misclassification of the e-waste derived fraction; the excessive cost due to the excessive administrative paperwork and financial guarantees; and the misalignment on the application of the Basel Convention.”
Ms Guerra said that transporting Y49-classified materials now requires prior notification and consent, even within OECD countries in most cases. This process imposes significant burdens that disproportionately affect small and medium-sized enterprises lacking robust administrative infrastructure. “So, as you may understand, this is creating a lot of trouble in the industry right now.
And also, what I like to point out is that the financial guarantee requested for each shipment is set at a national level.” Ms Guerra ended her presentation saying that work continues on refinements to the rules.
In concluding the session, Ms Harry reaffirmed the EEEVB Committee’s dedication to advocating for and addressing the challenges within the electrics and electronics recycling sector. She encouraged members to connect and collaborate, emphasising the importance of mutual support in advancing various initiatives.
