Stena Recycling signs agreement with Autoretur Battery Recycling

ABR was approved as a producer responsibility organization (PRO) with extended producer responsibility (EPR) in August and immediately announced a tender competition to engage treatment operators who can perform the practical services of collection, transport, reuse, and recycling of high-energy batteries. Cooperation agreements have now been signed with both Hydrovolt and Stena Recycling.

“We are very pleased with the tender process and the signing of the agreements, and look forward to a constructive and fruitful collaboration,” says Erik Andresen, CEO of ABR.

“Both Hydrovolt and Stena Recycling are first-class partners who have invested in industry-leading recycling solutions for end-of-life high-energy batteries. They will help ABR meet all regulatory requirements going forward. Through the agreements with ABR and the treatment operators, car importers will be assured of an efficient return system, both environmentally and economically.”

ABR is the automotive industry's own producer responsibility company, wholly owned by the Norwegian Car Importers Association through Autoretur AS, and car importers will now be able to sign up for membership and enter into agreements with one of the treatment operators. This work will start immediately. By becoming members of ABR, car importers will comply with all government requirements regarding extended producer responsibility for high-energy batteries, including the new, stricter requirements in the Battery Regulation, which will be implemented in Norwegian law shortly.

Within a few years, the number of high-energy batteries sent for recycling is expected to increase significantly. There are currently almost one million rechargeable cars with high-energy batteries on Norwegian roads, and many of these will have reached their end-of-life in the next few years. Within five to six years, there is a potential for up to 30,000 to 40,000 batteries to be delivered each year to ABR's return system, where the batteries will be recycled in accordance with government requirements, and so-called black mass, extracted from the recycling of the batteries, will be used in the production of new batteries.