Battery recycling
Batteries contain a number of heavy metals and toxic chemicals and disposing of them by the same process as regular household waste has raised concerns over soil contamination and water pollution.
[5] An evaluation of consumer alkaline battery recycling in Europe showed environmental benefit but at significant expense over disposal.
[11] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has reported lesser and varying levels of lead-acid battery recycling in the United States in earlier years, under various administrations, Republican and Democrat.
[2] Used most frequently in watches, toys, and some medical devices, silver-oxide batteries contain a small amount of mercury.
[16] These processes have to regain not only cobalt, nickel, copper, and aluminium from spent battery cells, but also a significant share of lithium.
[17][18] In order to achieve this goal, several steps are combined into complex process chains, while ensuring safety.
Additionally, the method requires extensive and complicated processing to selectively precipitate each metal salt.
[22] Pyrometallurgy involves the smelting of battery materials, followed by hydrometallurgical extraction to obtain metal salts from the slag.
[22][24] Maintaining the cathode structure represents an important increase in efficiency, since it produces a higher-value product than other recycling methods.
[24] In order to perform direct recycling, the cathode "black mass" (containing critical metals such as Li, Co, Mn, and Ni) must be separated from other battery components.
Traditional separation methods, primarily battery shredding, are insufficient, as they introduce impurities into the cathode.
[24][25] Identifying safer solvents which can effectively separate the black mass is a topic of current research.
[24] While direct recycling is not yet commercialized, research indicates that it can restore cathode materials to their original electrochemical capacity and performance.
Manufacturers working to remove cobalt from their products might produce the unintended consequence of reducing recycling.
[30] A novel approach is to maintain the cathode's crystalline structure, eliminating the significant energy expense of recreating it.
Studies have found that components such as the battery casing, current collectors, electrolyte, and separators have potential to be recycled given further research into processing methods.
[36] By 2023, several companies had moved beyond research and had set up process lines to recycle commercial quantities of Li-ion batteries.
In its Nevada pilot plant, the Redwood Materials process had recovered more than 95% of important metals (including lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper) from 230,000 kg (500,000 lb) of old NiMH and Li-Ion packs.
Consequently, it can be difficult to get accurate analyses of individual nations' exact rate of domestic recycling.
A multilateral international agreement, the Basel Convention, officially governs all transboundary movements of hazardous waste for recovery or disposal, among the 172 signatory countries.
(The U.S. is not a party, but has alternate arrangements with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and with Canada and with Mexico (where it ships many lead-acid batteries for recycling[38]).
The resulting publicity meant that a lot of people complied with the request to dispose of batteries responsibly.
[46] A scheme started in 2008 by Sainsbury's allowed household batteries to be posted free of charge in envelopes available at their shops.
[48] In Great Britain an increasing number of shops (Argos, Homebase, B&Q, Tesco, and Sainsbury's) are providing battery return boxes and cylinders for their customers.
A study estimated battery recycling rates in Canada based on RBRC data.
Collection rates through the [RBRC] program for all end of life small sealed lead acid (SLA) consumer batteries were estimated at 10% for 5-year and 15-year hoarding assumptions.
"[54] A November 2011 The New York Times article reported that batteries collected in the United States are increasingly being transported to Mexico for recycling as a result of a widening gap between the strictness of environmental and labor regulations between the two countries.
However, in a nation with a vast population of people still in poverty, most lead-acid battery recycling is by individuals and small informal enterprises, often taking no safety or environmental precautions.
[3] In nations like Indonesia, it was reported that over a span of four years, battery recycler's blood lead levels almost doubled.
PFAS accumulates in humans and wildlife, often leading to immune and thyroid disfunctions, liver diseases, and other issues relating to homeostasis inside of the body.
