This research was initiated as a result of a project funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency with the goals to: (a) examine the pollution prevention strategies to increase lead recycling and recovery and (b) identify the U.S. facilities receptive to implement such strategies. Since the majority of recycled lead is extracted from lead acid batteries (LAB), this work is centered on identifying the major sources of lead pollution in secondary lead smelters from battery recycling and identifying and evaluating readily deployable pollution prevention technologies for the secondary lead industry.
Currently, there is limited information on recycling rates for LAB in the published literature. The Battery Council International determined that the recycling rates for recovering lead from spent LAB is approaching 99.2% for the 1999 to 2003 time period. Although very encouraging, such rates appear to be significantly higher than those reported for other countries. Therefore, its recycling efforts in the US has been unclear so as to determine the maximum opportunities for metal recovery and recycling in the face of significant demands for LAB particularly in the auto industry. In the first part of the research an evidence-based approach is utilized to: (1) determine recycling rates for lead recovery in the LAB product lifecycle for the U.S. market; and (2) quantify and identify opportunities where lead recovery and recycling can be improved. It was observed that 1) lead recovery and recycling has been stable between 1999-2006; (2) lead consumption has increased at an annual rate of 2.25%, thus, the values derived in this study for opportunities dealing with lead recovery and recycling underestimate the amount of lead in scrap and waste generated; and (3) the opportunities for maximizing lead recovery and recycling are centered on spent batteries left with consumers, mishandled LAB sent to auto wreckers, slag resulting from recycling technology process inefficiencies, and lead lost in municipal waste.
The second part of this research examines pollution prevention and waste minimization practices and technologies which meet the following criteria: (a) reduce/recover/recycle the largest quantities of lead currently being disposed of as waste, (b) technically and economically viable, that is, ready to be diffused and easily transferable, and have (c) strong industry interest. The documented methodology reveals that it is technically and economically feasible to implement integrated environmental solutions to increase lead recovery and recycling among US smelters.
The third part of this research quantifies the recycling rates for lead recovery in the LAB product lifecycle for the U.S. market throughout the history of recycling efforts (i.e., based on all historical data available); and, identifies opportunities for significant lead recovery and recycling. The finding of this research suggests that future efforts be directed into ways to establish sustainable development for the secondary smelting industry. This is important to achieve for the following reasons: (a) to maintain sustained growth in turbulent times such as those experienced in today’s global financial industries and felt throughout other industries through, among other things, the tightening of supply of credit; and (b) to significantly reduce dependence upon primary lead smelting and imports to compensate for the declining efforts in lead recovery and recycling.