Bear in mind the Flint, Michigan, water disaster? The public well being catastrophe that, at its peak, poisoned practically 5 p.c of town’s kids with dangerously excessive ranges of lead of their water? It was maybe one of many few public well being crises within the US that rose to the prominence of a nationwide scandal, sparking outrage and dominating headlines for years.
The fallout led to lawsuits, native and federal investigations, firings of prime officers, and a settlement north of $600 million.
However as scandalous because the Flint disaster was, it represents simply the tip of a world iceberg.
World wide, an estimated one in three kids — about 800 million youngsters — has lead ranges of their blood as excessive, or greater, than the children in Flint did. That must be an enormous reason for concern as a result of lead is a potent neurotoxin that results in impaired IQ in kids, untimely deaths within the aged, and a number of unfavourable results that final a lifetime. And so far as we all know, there are not any protected ranges of lead publicity.
Beginning within the Seventies, the US and plenty of European nations started eliminating lead from paint and gasoline because the well being risks grew to become simple. Algeria, the final nation to take action, phased out leaded gasoline in 2021, however lead paint nonetheless stays authorized in lots of low- and middle-income nations.
However more and more, researchers are pointing to lead-acid batteries — that are used in every single place, in each creating and rich nations, to start out practically each gasoline automotive and to supply backup energy in hospitals and knowledge facilities — as one of many main but most uncared for sources of lead publicity worldwide.
The batteries themselves aren’t harmful. The issue arises as soon as they’re useless and should be recycled. A typical automotive battery holds about 15–20 kilos of lead, which is value about $15 primarily based on the worldwide value of lead. That makes these batteries precious, not trash. And in loads of low- and middle-income nations, that worth is extracted in small mom-and-pop outlets, tin-roof sheds, or shoddy recycling operations — about 10,000 to 30,000 of them globally.
Right here’s how a typical casual operation works in a lot of the World South: Employees purchase previous batteries, crack them open, drain the acid on the bottom, then soften down the lead plates in makeshift furnaces. The melted lead is poured into molds, and the ensuing ingots are then bought to make new batteries or different merchandise.
Doing that is less expensive and extra worthwhile than operating a correct facility, however way more harmful. The method releases lead-filled mud that drifts into close by houses, soil, and water. The poisonous leftovers from melting down plates — referred to as slag — typically find yourself dumped in close by fields and streams.
Even when work strikes into formal factories, the hazard doesn’t essentially go away. In Nigeria, for instance, licensed vegetation typically function with poor mud management, careless slag disposal, and little safety for employees. And the issue isn’t confined to poorer nations. A 2023 investigation from the New York Occasions revealed that formal recycling services in Mexico — a comparatively wealthier nation — nonetheless poisoned close by communities. As Andreas Manhart of the Öko-Institut, a German nonprofit environmental analysis group, put it, taking a job at a few of these poorly-operated vegetation could be “like receiving a demise sentence.”
It doesn’t must be this fashion. The truth is, we already know easy methods to repair it.
Brazil, as soon as dominated by unlawful yard smelters, has managed to formalize the commerce: By 2022, greater than 75 p.c of its lead-acid batteries have been being recycled in licensed services. The requirements aren’t excellent, however they’re far safer than casual smelting. It didn’t take inventing a brand new know-how, however a deliberate change in guidelines and incentives. China, in its personal approach, pressured a nationwide shutdown of unlawful smelters after which added incentives to tug the commerce into the formal sector. South Africa has made progress by requiring producers to take previous batteries again, and the Philippines is piloting related concepts.
“What you have got is a really basic externality drawback,” mentioned Hugo Smith, a researcher who writes the Substack Lead Battery Notes. In different phrases, casual recyclers get monetary savings by slicing corners, however the true prices — poisoned youngsters, contaminated soil, lifelong well being injury — are pushed onto the neighborhood. “You want coverage to step in as a result of there’s this elementary mismatch within the financial incentives.”
With the proper guidelines, these incentives could be flipped. International locations can steer their used batteries away from yard smelters and into regulated services which might be as much as 90 p.c safer when executed effectively, mentioned Micaella Rogers, who co-founded the nonprofit Lead Acid Battery Recycling Initiative.
The stakes are excessive. Eliminating lead is arguably one of many highest-return strikes in international well being. The World Financial institution estimated in 2023 that lead publicity drains practically $6 trillion a 12 months from the worldwide economic system — about 7 p.c of GDP — and causes thousands and thousands of untimely deaths.
So what levers may really repair it?
Cease (by chance) subsidizing air pollution
To grasp why yard smelting exists within the first place, you might want to understand how previous batteries transfer by means of the system.
When a automotive, motorcycle, or backup generator battery dies, it nonetheless accommodates 15 to twenty kilos of precious lead. Within the US or Europe, take-back legal guidelines imply that mechanics or retailers should return used batteries again right into a regulated system. However in a lot of the World South, issues look very completely different. Outdated batteries are collected by scrap sellers, traded in avenue markets, or exported throughout borders — and whoever pays essentially the most often will get them.
“The actual levers to unravel this sit with finance and commerce, not simply setting.”
— Micaella Rogers, Lead Acid Battery Recycling Initiative co-founder
That’s the place the issue begins. The dirtiest recyclers — those slicing corners on security and skipping taxes — can supply greater costs. They’re saving cash by not spending on air pollution controls or employee safety, to allow them to outbid higher operators.
And but most governments nonetheless deal with useless batteries as a waste administration challenge, leaving it to setting ministries that target disposal. “The actual levers to unravel this sit with finance and commerce, not simply setting,” Rogers mentioned. Federal finance ministries and departments set the taxes and tariffs. Commerce ministries determine who should purchase and promote. So these ministries, not the setting places of work, really maintain the ability to determine the place the batteries find yourself.
Brazil is a case examine in easy methods to repair these incentives. For years, its casual recyclers — typically small, unlicensed smelters — had the sting as a result of they didn’t pay Brazil’s value-added tax (VAT), a form of gross sales tax, whereas licensed vegetation did. In 2005, the federal government stopped charging VAT on gross sales of previous batteries to recyclers. And that’s given licensed vegetation an edge to both match or beat casual consumers on value. As soon as the financial incentives flipped, the batteries began flowing into safer, regulated vegetation.
Eradicating taxes is essential for this mannequin to work. India adopted a Brazil-style buyback rule just a few years in the past, requiring producers to take again used batteries. However not like Brazil, India saved their taxes on scrap in place, giving casual recyclers a built-in value benefit and blunting the reform. “You mainly can’t count on the formal sector to outbid the casual sector for scrap when the casual sector begins with a 15 p.c benefit,” mentioned Smith.
This sort of tax change repair works greatest in nations with solidly middle-income populations, loads of home battery manufacturing, and excellent management on imports, Smith argued. In these settings, tweaking the tax numbers actually can determine whether or not used batteries circulation to backyards or to regulated vegetation. However in poorer nations with fragmented markets and weak customs, a tax break alone received’t lower it.
And even in Brazil, fixing the tax was simply step one — the true problem was ensuring each battery really made it again.
Make the producer accountable
If the primary answer adjustments who pays essentially the most for useless batteries, this one adjustments who’s on the hook for getting them again.
As an alternative of attempting to police a sprawl of scrapyards and smelters, regulators can put the authorized burden on the handful of firms that promote new batteries. Below this state of affairs, referred to as prolonged producer duty (EPR), producers should show to regulators that for each new battery they promote, they’ve taken again an previous one and despatched it to a licensed recycler.
Consider it like bottle deposits in some states within the US: If a retailer sells drinks in glass bottles, additionally they must take the empties again or assist fund a system that does. With batteries, the logic is similar. The vendor has to point out a paper path, proving the previous inventory returned to an authorized recycling plant.
Brazil went all-in on this method in 2008, constructing on its 2005 determination to exempt scrap batteries from VAT. The federal government required producers and importers to purchase again as many used batteries as they bought, and the {industry} was pressured to determine the mechanics. They did it by rewriting distributor contracts so the rule was basically one in, one out. In follow, a pallet of recent inventory doesn’t ship until there’s an equal weight of previous batteries coming again — a rule enforced not simply by regulators however by the {industry} itself. The vans that ship new batteries additionally decide up the used ones, so the logistics value is minimal.
To make this technique auditable, Brazil introduced within the Instituto Brasileiro de Energia Reciclável (IBER), a nonprofit the {industry} arrange with authorities sign-off in 2016. Consider it because the system’s bookkeeper. Corporations log what they promote and take again, and recyclers log what they obtain. IBER then independently cross-checks these numbers and fingers out certificates exhibiting who’s in compliance. For firms, it’s less complicated than submitting with a dozen companies. For regulators, it’s one shared ledger that makes dishonest more durable.
The leverage right here is highly effective: no scrap again, no new inventory. Producers can merely refuse to promote to distributors who don’t return sufficient previous batteries. That’s a a lot stronger enforcement mechanism than attempting to ship inspectors into each back-alley smelter.
Did it work? Earlier than these guidelines, the World Financial Discussion board described Brazil as a spot the place “the bulk” of used batteries went to unlawful smelters. By 2023, IBER reported that its members — masking about three-quarters of the nationwide market — have been amassing as many batteries as they bought. The truth is, members returned 104 p.c of what they put in the marketplace, that means they pulled in much more scrap than their very own gross sales. In fact, these numbers come from IBER, a nonprofit arrange by the battery {industry} to deal with compliance. It’s an industry-run service, not a authorities company, so the system relies on firms working collectively and reporting actually.
Take-back packages and recordkeeping shine the place nations can clearly determine producers — whether or not these are home producers or just a few large importers — and the place customs and tax methods can really see the commerce and auditors can confirm the information. It’s a weaker slot in markets with porous borders and 1000’s of tiny sellers.
Apply stress from the skin in
In fragmented, import-heavy markets, like Nigeria, simply deciding who’s accountable turns right into a bureaucratic slog. EPR decides who will get the batteries, however it doesn’t assure how they’re recycled. If the “licensed” vegetation are low-standard, you’ve simply handed the batteries to the flawed gamers. Right here, the leverage isn’t at a metropolis smelter or a sleepy ministry, it’s up the chain, with the merchants and types who purchase the lead and determine who can promote into high-paying markets.
The repair is straightforward in principle: Make consumers do precise due diligence.
If entry to the profitable US, EU, or Korean markets relies on clear recycling, soiled vegetation out of the blue have a enterprise drawback, not an ethical one. The menace isn’t a positive from a weak regulator; it’s shedding the proper to promote into the US or Europe.
A piece of Nigeria’s recycled lead is bought by means of international commodity merchants like Trafigura to worldwide consumers. In 2023, Nigeria shipped about $54 million to $75 million in refined result in the US alone. Most of that metallic feeds new lead-acid batteries — the primary use for lead worldwide. However till not too long ago, most main consumers and merchants barely engaged regardless of being precisely those that may shift scrap from harmful sheds to protected services. Solely now are some firms stepping in to demand accountable recycling.
The repair is straightforward in principle: Make consumers do precise due diligence. Worldwide merchants and producers may commit to purchasing solely from vegetation that meet primary security guidelines — issues like correct furnaces, acid therapy, employee safety — requirements already spelled out within the UN’s Basel technical pointers for used lead-acid batteries. Proof comes by means of receipts, paperwork, and unbiased spot checks. In easy phrases: guarantee consumers hint the place their lead comes from and show it was recycled safely, the identical approach electronics firms already must for cobalt.
However proper now, the coverage scaffolding in high-income markets is patchy. The European Union, for instance, has a minerals due-diligence program for tracing tin, tungsten, cobalt, and different minerals however lead is noticeably left off the listing. And the EU Battery Regulation’s due-diligence chapter covers cobalt, lithium, nickel, and pure graphite — once more, not lead.
But when lead have been to be included, European consumers must map their provide chains, audit smelters, and drop noncompliant suppliers. The identical logic could be mirrored by large US consumers through procurement, insurer, or lender necessities.
This answer works as a result of it bypasses weak native enforcement. If a Nigerian plant can solely attain the best-paying markets by assembly robust, auditable requirements, the economics flip. That’s the identical logic that strikes batteries inside Brazil, simply utilized on the worldwide stage. And since commerce in used batteries and lead is concentrated by means of a handful of regional hubs and merchants, tightening just a few provider lists can transfer loads of lead into protected fingers.
Outdoors-in stress does have its limits. It received’t outline “producer” or repair customs — that’s what EPR and tax fixes are for. And with out clear requirements, due diligence can devolve into box-ticking. However stress could be a reasonable choice the place governments can’t or received’t implement: drive large consumers to supply responsibly, and everybody else falls in line.
None of those levers ask nations to invent some new know-how. What they alter is the mathematics. It asks them to alter who pays essentially the most for a useless battery, who’s legally on the hook to take it again, and who will get to entry wealthy markets. If we get these incentives proper, we will doubtlessly save tons of of thousands and thousands of youngsters from being slowly poisoned.
We’ve recognized how harmful lead is for a extremely very long time now, and we took it out of paint and gasoline within the US a long time in the past. Extending that very same safety in every single place could be one of many quietest, largest public well being wins of our time.
