The safe disposal of these everyday, but potentially toxic, items is simpler than many people realise, writes Melinda Ham.
Imagine two to three litres of sulphuric acid and a significant quantity of lead leaching into the environment - corrosive toxins seeping into the ground and water table, potentially harming people and animals.
That’s what can happen if just one lead-acid battery (LAB), used in cars, boats, home alarms and generators, is dumped.
Each year Australians buy 9.2 million LABs and throw away 7.8 million, according to the Australian Battery Recycling Initiative (ABRI), a group of battery manufacturers, recyclers, retailers, government bodies and environment groups.
Fortunately, about 90 per cent of these batteries are recycled. Planet Ark, a national non-profit environmental organisation, and the ABRI are trying to raise awareness and capture the 800,000 batteries that aren’t recycled so they don’t end up in landfill, especially in remote and regional areas, where disposal is more difficult.
”The hazardous risk to the environment and, at the same time, the valuable lead and plastic that can be taken from [the batteries], make them worthwhile to recycle,” Planet Ark’s recycling manager, Janet Sparrow, says.
This year she commissioned the marketing and social research company Pollinate to carry out a large-scale survey on people’s attitudes to LAB recycling.
”About 1000 people around the country, across all demographics, were surveyed,” Sparrow says.
”The perception was that LAB recycling was difficult and if there was an easier way to do it, 98 per cent said they had a great willingness to take part.”
In fact, LAB recycling is extremely easy and accessible. Planet Ark’s next challenge is to mount a major communication and media campaign to show people how to safely dispose of their batteries.
The survey found 64 per cent of women respondents had LABs changed by a mechanic or electrician (compared with 43 per cent of men), so the emphasis is on educating tradespeople in recycling methods.
Already the ABRI has produced a pamphlet to increase industry awareness and help companies dispose of LABs more effectively and safely.
Planet Ark and Century Yuasa, the biggest Australian LAB manufacturer, as well as Battery World, the largest household battery retailer, have online recycling search sites in place.
Planet Ark’s recyclingnearyou.com asks for a location and product to be recycled and provides a list of drop-off locations. Century Yuasa has a website targeting LAB disposal called recyclemybattery.com.au, which puts visitors in touch with their nearest LAB recycler. Alternatively, batteries can be taken to any Battery World shop for recycling.
Previously, LABs had to be exported for recycling but Australia now has three companies that break up batteries into their components. ”We now have more than enough capacity to do it ourselves here,” ABRI’s chief executive, Helen Lewis, says.
Century Yuasa has supported LAB recycling for 80 years, Nathan Pickering, the company’s recycling manager, says. Batteries are collected and brought to the company’s five metropolitan distribution centres and then consolidated at Renewed Metal Technologies (RMT), an advanced battery-breaking facility in Wagga Wagga that has the lowest emission levels and energy use of any plant of its type in the world.
At RMT, the components of the LABs are split up. First, the battery exterior is chipped off (about 2500 tonnes of these plastic chips are sold annually to manufacturers of products such as outdoor furniture and wheelie bins). Lead intercell connectors, battery plates and posts are desulphurised and melted in a smelter.
The molten lead is then converted into 24,000 tonnes of London Metal Exchange-grade pure and alloy lead ingots that are sold to make items such as X-ray proof paper. The sulphuric acid is neutralised with soda ash and the salt created is concentrated into sodium sulphate, an ingredient used in fertiliser, paper, soap, textiles and glass manufacturing. By producing 7000 tonnes of these crystals locally, dependency on imports is reduced.
”It’s an efficient process,” Pickering says. ”More than 98 per cent of the LAB is recycled. Traditionally, batteries were opened up just to get the lead out and the rest was discarded but this way almost everything gets reused.”
To complete the cycle, when Century Yuasa and other battery manufacturers produce new batteries, recycled components are used where available.
