ACCC Product Safety Matters Newsletter. Button Batteries

⚠️ Buyer beware alert!
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Supplier guidance released for button battery standards

Dear XXXX,

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released supplier guidance for the mandatory standards for button/coin batteries and consumer goods containing button/coin batteries.

A Guide for Business on the Application of Mandatory Standards will help suppliers understand the new requirements for secure battery compartments, child resistant packaging, and warnings and information.

We have also published:

The new mandatory standards aim to improve the safety of button batteries and consumer products that contain them. In Australia, one child a month is seriously injured after swallowing or inserting a button battery, with some of them sustaining serious, lifelong injuries. In Australia and around the world, there is a growing record of injuries and deaths from button/coin batteries.

We encourage businesses to share this information widely and comply with the new requirements as soon as possible. The sooner you start using these standards, the sooner you’ll reduce the risk of injury to children. Make sure that any buying arrangements you enter into now will get you compliant in the future.

Selling any non-compliant stock on or after 22 June 2022 may result in penalties.

New mandatory standards

In December 2020 the Australian Government made mandatory safety and information standards for button/coin batteries and consumer goods containing them.

The four mandatory standards are:

The mandatory standards include an 18-month transition period. This allows time for suppliers to implement any manufacturing and design changes to comply with the new requirements. From June 2022, suppliers must comply with the requirements in the standards.

More information

The Product Safety Australia website also provides background on the ACCC’s safety investigation into button/coin batteries, as well as other information on button battery safety.

Kind regards,

Product Safety Australia
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)

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The guidance includes hearing aid batteries. Depending on chemistry and size?

I wonder how the elderly will cope with the tamper resistant packaging, or will suppliers get away with a warning only to keep out of the reach of children? Opening most hearing aid battery compartments is perfectly suited to small hands.

Is there also a need to train Granddad etc not to leave used cells accessible.

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I had to extract the last of 4 from an opened pack plus 1 of 4 from an unopened pack of Energiser CR2032 batteries this week for the el cheapo kitchen scales.

Even with the assistance of a stainless steel skewer, it was almost impossible.

They are not just child ptoof, they are adult proof, and a frail person would not stand a chance of opening them.

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Apparently. But also exempts the hearing aid itself. All looks unnecessarily complicated.

Yes. I am unclear on whether this, in practice, is a change to battery packaging. It seems to me that it has been adult proof for quite some time already.

It looks to me that the real change will be in the products that use batteries.

Digression: It’s a pity that they didn’t piggyback on this new regulation that all new products and batteries must use IEC international standard battery nomenclature (e.g. LR1154 instead of manufacturer-specific AG13, A76).

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An article recommending that children who have swallowed a button battery be given honey as an emergency treatment.

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