On 1 January 2021, a revised version of the German Batteries Act (Batteriegesetz, “BattG”) entered into force. This change was triggered by the fact that the former German system of battery take-back was no longer sustainable. The former legal structure had imposed an unfair burden upon GRS Batterien, Europe’s largest collection scheme, which had become increasingly financially unattractive and therefore had been abandoned by many battery manufacturers who had set up their own take-back schemes.

The German Federal Ministry of the Environment has published a draft bill for a “Single-Use Plastic Fund Act”. The bill transposes the extended producer responsibility requirements as set out in Art. 8 para. 1 to 7 of the Single-use Plastic Directive into German law. In the future, manufacturers of single-use plastic products must cover the costs of waste collection, cleaning up litter resulting from those products and the subsequent transport and treatment of such litter.