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Supporters push producer-funded battery recycling bill after transfer-station fires and rising municipal costs
Summary
Representative Karen Eel and a coalition of municipal, fire-safety and environmental groups urged lawmakers to adopt a producer-funded battery stewardship program (HB 16002) to reduce fires, lower municipal disposal costs and recover critical minerals. Opponents raised concerns about market effects and transparency; the committee recommended ITL and left further action on the regular calendar.
Representative Karen Eel opened the public hearing on HB 16002 by framing the bill as a public-safety and municipal-cost measure: "This is fire," she said, urging a statewide, producer-funded stewardship program to collect loose and removable lithium and other rechargeable and alkaline batteries that otherwise enter the waste stream.
Eel described the proposal as extended producer responsibility: producers would fund a stewardship organization to operate free, convenient collection and recycling statewide. She said the bill would cost the state nothing and would not function as a tax on consumers because costs would be internalized at the national producer level; opponents had argued otherwise.
Municipal officials and fire chiefs provided firsthand examples of local costs and incidents. Liz Barber, Hollis selectboard member, said Hollis budgeted $500 for battery disposal last year and had to increase that item to $2,000 this year. Chief Ben Larush, president of the New Hampshire Association of Fire Chiefs, said battery-related incidents have occurred at schools and transfer stations and described the difficulty of responding to thermal-runaway events. Waste-operator testimony cited facility fires and damage attributable or suspected to batteries.
Environmental and conservation groups — including the Conservation Law Foundation, Appalachian Mountain Club and The Nature Conservancy — supported the bill, citing pollution prevention, resource recovery (lithium, cobalt, copper) and lower emissions from recycling versus mining.
Industry and municipal witnesses differed on economic impacts. Some local recyclers told the committee they currently provide collection as a paid or service activity and worried how a single stewardship program might affect existing businesses. Opponents raised concerns about antitrust and monopoly risk because a stewardship organization standardizes collection; supporters noted similar programs operate in other states without notable retail disruptions.
DEES witnesses said product stewardship and extended producer responsibility are part of the state's solid-waste management framework and reiterated that lithium-ion batteries pose a fire risk in the waste stream when punctured or compacted. "Once a lithium ion battery is punctured and exposed to the atmosphere, it can take off," a DES witness said.
In executive session the committee voted to recommend ITL on HB 16002 and, unlike some other bills, did not place it on consent; the bill remained on the regular committee calendar for further consideration.
