Does the NSW battery stewardship scheme apply to my business?

Last verified 2026-10-05

Not in force yet. The rules on this page come from the Product Lifecycle Responsibility Regulation 2026, which starts on the day the Act behind it is brought into force. When we checked on 5 October 2026, none of the Act had commenced and no start date had been published. The consumer page has the timing.

This page is a plain-English guide to the law, not legal advice. If your business might be caught, the EPA is the body to ask (details at the bottom), and a lawyer can tell you how it applies to your setup.

Step 1: do you supply batteries the scheme covers?

The regulation lists exactly which batteries count. These are in:

• AAA, AA, C, D, 9 volt and 6 volt lantern batteries
• button batteries and button cells
• removable rechargeable batteries weighing 5 kg or less
• rechargeable batteries that power an e-bike, electric scooter, self-balancing scooter or electric skateboard
• portable power banks weighing 5 kg or less

These are out: lead acid batteries, mobile phone batteries, laptop and tablet batteries, and the back-up batteries built into emergency lighting. Anything not on the first list is out too.

If an e-bike or e-scooter battery can’t practicably be removed, the regulation treats the whole vehicle as a regulated battery.

“Supply” is broad. The Act counts selling, distributing, offering, advertising and displaying a product for supply, among other things.

Step 2: are you the brand owner?

The duties sit with the brand owner, and the law defines that in two ways:

• the owner of the product name (brand, trade mark or trade name) a battery is supplied under in NSW, and
• the person responsible for bringing the battery into NSW for supply.

Two limits matter. If the brand-name owner doesn’t supply the battery in NSW itself and someone else brings it in, the name owner isn’t the brand owner. And a business that only transports or warehouses batteries for someone else isn’t bringing them into the State for supply.

The Act also reaches outside NSW. It applies to people and suppliers outside the State where the matter relates to supply into or within NSW.

So the questions to ask are: is the battery sold under your brand in NSW, and are you the one bringing it into NSW to sell? If a business you buy from does both of those, it’s likely the brand owner rather than you. If you import batteries yourself, or sell your own label, look closely.

Step 3: how much do you supply?

The regulation has a threshold. Its core scheme requirements, and its clauses on record content, reporting and action plans, don’t apply to a brand owner that supplies less than 24 kg of regulated batteries in NSW in a financial year. That’s measured by weight, so weigh a year’s worth.

The Act’s own duties to keep records, notify the EPA before first supply and report each year are written for every brand owner, and the regulation doesn’t say whether they still apply below 24 kg. If you’re under the threshold, ask the EPA.

What a brand owner has to do

What applies depends on whether the EPA has signed an agreement with a product stewardship organisation (PSO) to run the scheme for your type of battery. The EPA’s stated intent is to appoint one. When we checked on 5 October 2026, none had been announced.

If there is a PSO for your battery type:

• Be a party to an agreement with the PSO, and pay its fees for running the scheme.
• Notify the EPA, and the PSO, before you first supply regulated batteries.
• Keep records for each financial year, for at least six years: how you’ve told customers about safe disposal and recycling, and for each battery type, how many you supplied in NSW and their chemistry and weight.
• Give the PSO an annual report within three months of the end of each financial year.

If there’s no PSO for your battery type, you are the “responsible entity” and the scheme’s requirements fall on you directly:

• Meet the scheme requirements yourself: enough collection points in metropolitan and regional NSW, safe collection bins, recycling to the EPA’s standard, and keeping customers informed.
• Prepare an action plan and lodge it with the EPA within three months of notifying it.
• Keep the same records, and send the EPA an annual report that includes what you spent on public education, collection and storage, and recycling.

The Act also says that where an action plan is required, a brand owner must not supply except in line with an approved plan that’s in effect. How that sits with the three-month window to lodge one is a question to put to the EPA.

The penalties

Failing to meet a scheme requirement is an offence. The collection-point and bin requirements are declared safety requirements, which carry the higher tier. Maximum court penalties, at the NSW penalty unit value of $110:

Each can grow by a further amount for every day an offence continues.

What to do now

1. Work out whether you’re the brand owner for each battery you sell into NSW, using step 2.
2. Weigh a year’s supply of regulated batteries, to see where you sit against 24 kg.
3. Watch for the PSO announcement and the start date. We’ll update the consumer page when either happens.
4. Ask the EPA about anything that’s unclear for your business. Its product stewardship page gives this contact for the batteries scheme: batteries.reform@epa.nsw.gov.au