Improved Lead Battery Recycling

Lead Battery Collection

National collection systems are needed to direct used lead batteries to environmentally sound recycling facilities. To be effective, the collection system must provide financial incentives such as a purchase discount or a deposit system. If designed correctly, such a program can gradually bring the informal sector to operate as collectors (and not recyclers) and contribute to its success. Laws establishing specific responsibilities on battery producers and mandatory fees (discount or deposits) are necessary to improve product stewardship.

China, India and some other countries already have general laws requiring lead battery manufacturers to take back used batteries for recycling. However, these are largely ineffective because they don’t provide financial incentives and do not impose penalties for noncompliance. For example, the Indian Battery Management and Handling Rules, require lead battery manufacturers to collect a minimum of 90% of the batteries sold through dealers. The law established an extensive reporting system to track the supply chain. In order to evaluate compliance with this law, OK International obtained individual company reports filed with the government. The data indicates that very few companies are complying with this law and even large battery producers are falling short of the mandatory provisions in this standard. See OK International’s report investigating India’s used battery collection.

Environmental Benefits of Improved Recycling

Recycling lead used in batteries improves the utilization of the metal, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and saves energy. However, informal sector recycling carried out by dismantling batteries and melting down the material in open vessels or crude furnaces can easily result in 50 percent of the lead being lost to the environment. The recovered lead from most of these processes is of very poor quality and unusable for making new high quality lead batteries without additional refinement.

Improving recycling practices will provide significant energy savings and result in less greenhouse gas emissions. Recovering lead from used batteries is much less energy intensive than producing primary lead from ore – using approximately 39% less energy than that needed to produce lead from mining and resulting in a 39% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

Disassembling Used Lead Batteries in Vietnam

Lead is easily melted down for reuse and therefore lead batteries are rarely discarded as waste. Recycling lead by melting down used batteries (also known as secondary smelting) is a profitable business throughout the world. Unfortunately, recycling lead from used batteries is known to result in high lead exposures that can cause severe health effects and contaminate the environment unless adequate equipment is used and procedures to minimize emissions are followed.

In many developing countries individuals working on the side of the road or in “backyard smelters” carry out lead battery recycling. Because of the primitive nature of these operations and their enormous number (estimated to be in the tens of thousands) the control of lead poisoning from the contamination of homes and the environment is a major challenge. In 2008 at least 18 children died and many more were poisoned from lead in Dakar, Senegal after exposure to contaminated dust and soil from the recycling of used lead batteries.

Large-scale recycling facilities are also known to be significant sources of lead exposure in many parts of the world. There are dozens of examples of informal and even large lead battery recycling plants that have been the source of lead poisoning among workers and local residents

Hazardous Exports Contribute to Soil Contamination at Lead Battery Recycling Plants in Mexico

This report summarizes our investigation conducted in partnership with the Mexican NGO Casa Cem that found extensive soil contamination around lead battery recycling plants in Mexico processing used batteries from the U.S. Our findings include:

• 57% of the soil samples collected exceeded the Mexican standard for industrial areas (800 ppm) and the average lead concentration was 4,897 parts per million (ppm) or more than six times the Mexican Standard;

• Exports of used lead batteries from the U.S. to Mexico increased by 18% from 2011 through 2021;

• Approximately 75% percent of used lead batteries exported from the U.S. in 2021 were sent to Mexico for recycling;

• Clarios (formerly Johnson Controls) was responsible for 68% of all used lead battery exports sent from the U.S. to Mexico in 2021;

• The average soil lead level outside of Clarios’s Garcia plant, which took in a larger share of used lead batteries from the U.S. than any other facility, was 8,502 ppm or more than ten times the Mexican Standard.

See the full report here in ENGLISH and SPANISH.

See our press release on U.S. Lead Battery Exports Cause Soil Lead Contamination in Mexico.