Lead-acid battery production pollution continues

In recent years, the country has introduced a variety of policies and measures to regulate the production and recycling of lead-acid batteries, but the reporter in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Ningxia and other places investigation and found that lead-acid batteries in the production and recycling of pollution phenomenon occurred repeatedly. Especially in the recycling link, one side is the regular recycling lead enterprises generally "eat not enough", but on the other side is a large number of waste batteries into the "black market".

Industry insiders believe that lead-acid batteries have serious potential lead and acid pollution in the production and recycling links, and frequent pollution incidents aggravate heavy metal pollution. In order to effectively implement the extended producer responsibility system, it is necessary to further improve relevant policies and regulations, introduce the environmental deposit return system, and implement the classified transportation of waste lead-acid batteries.

Lead-acid battery production pollution continues

The hazardous waste containing lead produced by enterprises has problems such as nowhere to go, piling up beyond the time limit and even illegal transfer, which has become the focus and difficulty of environmental safety supervision for enterprises involved in heavy metal pollution.

In may this year, the ministry of industry and consumer goods industry department of Jiang Suli battery co., LTD., has carried on the interview, found Jiang Suli and battery co., LTD., is a serious breach of the lead battery industry standard conditions, including from the local environmental protection department without waste water outlet of the legal punishment, part with lead production workshop has not closed in accordance with requirements, the production area and non-production area not strictly separated, workers' blood lead levels insufficient testing number, etc.

According to the self-monitoring plan updated by the company in January 2017, rishi battery is mainly engaged in lead-acid battery manufacturing and waste battery recycling, and belongs to the heavy metal state control enterprise. In addition to general pollutants, industrial effluent from ritz batteries contains lead, a heavy metal.

Lead is a heavy metal that does great harm to human body. When lead and its compounds enter the human body, they may cause harm to multiple systems including nerves, hematopoiesis, digestion, kidney, cardiovascular system and endocrine system, and even lead poisoning.

An environmental protection public welfare organization took samples of the waste water suspected to have been illegally discharged by the enterprise, and entrusted the samples to a qualified third party "biwei shenmei commodity inspection (Shanghai) co., LTD." (" biwei inspection ") for testing and analysis. According to an analysis provided by bivek, the environmental protection organization took a sample of water from the exterior wall of rishi battery, which was suspected to have been discharged illegally, with a pH value of 2.23, which was highly acidic, and a lead content of 8,150 micrograms per liter.

Pollution in lead-acid batteries is not unique. In yifeng industrial park in jiangxi province, media reported that an open sludge tank of a battery factory was filled with lead residue and sludge, and the waste was secretly filled with lead.

According to a provincial environmental protection department in the east, they found that after comprehensive renovation of lead-acid batteries and recycled lead industry for many times, due to economic benefits and technical constraints, the disposal capacity of hazardous waste is dwarfed by the actual production. The lead-containing hazardous waste produced by enterprises has problems such as nowhere to go, piling up beyond the deadline and even illegal transfer, which has become the key and difficult point of environmental safety supervision for enterprises.

Huge amount of used batteries going into 'black market'

Due to limited recycling capacity, regulatory loopholes and other reasons, a considerable amount of waste batteries went to the "black market". But the current waste lead-acid battery recycling industry disorder still exists, there are still more than half of the provinces lack of waste lead-acid battery recycling disposal qualification units.

Entered the ningxia lingwu ubs in ningxia non-ferrous metal technology co., LTD., production workshop, press pieces of waste lead acid battery is seen through the conveyor belt into a "big pot" is mechanical dismantling, produced in the process of the battery acid through the water treatment system of layer upon layer purification eventually become more clear water.

According to the ningxia environmental protection bureau, there are currently two qualified recycling and treatment enterprises for lead-acid batteries in ningxia, with a total processing capacity of 180,000 tons per year. It is estimated that ningxia produces about 80,000 tons of used batteries every year, but the two companies can only recycle 50,000 to 60,000 tons each year, and a considerable part of the used batteries still go to the "black market".

The reporter investigates discovery, in recent years illegal workshop type lead recovery point pollution case occurs from time to time. For example, in June 2017, departments of environmental protection and public security in tongzhou district, nantong, jiangsu, jointly cracked 5 cases of environmental violation involving the illegal dumping of waste lead-acid battery liquid. In January 2018, the public security department of Shanxi Province cracked down on a criminal gang that used used lead-acid batteries as raw materials to dismantle, smelt and sell lead ingots.

"When thespecial cracked down on 'small workshops', business was obviously much better." Ningxia ubs nonferrous metal technology co., LTD. Chairman Yang wenli said.

China is the world's largest producer and exporter of lead-acid batteries. China produced 4.72 million tons of metallic lead in 2017, accounting for about 44 percent of global lead production, according to the latest data released by the national development and reform commission. Waste lead-acid battery recycling chaos has a long history, as early as in 2010, the ministry of industry and information technology issued the "battery industry comprehensive prevention plan for heavy metal pollution (draft for comments)" pointed out, Europe, the United States, Japan and other developed countries waste lead-acid battery organized recovery rate has exceeded 90%, and China's organized recovery rate of less than 30%.

In fact, in order to regulate the recycling of waste lead-acid batteries, the relevant national departments have introduced a variety of policy measures in recent years. However, the current waste lead-acid battery recycling industry disorder still exists.

The living space of formal recycling enterprises has been squeezed

At present, in the field of waste lead-acid battery recycling has formed a "bad money drives out good money" situation. Some illegal "small workshops" compete for business with formal businesses at almost no cost.

The reporter investigates to discover, the following several aspects cause to form in the waste lead acid battery recycling domain "the bad currency drives out the good currency" the situation.

First, the formal recovery processing enterprise production cost is high. Mr. Yang said environmental protection costs account for more than 20% of the total cost of recycled lead, including operations, maintenance and depreciation. The illegal "small workshops" rely on an ax and a stove, with almost no cost, so they can raise their prices sharply and compete with the formal enterprises.

Second, there is no joint effort between departments. The interviewee believed that the waste lead-acid battery covers a wide range of areas, and relevant departments can hardly do anything on their own. Currently, the recycling of waste lead-acid battery in normal automobile 4S stores is relatively standardized, but the layout of automobile maintenance points is scattered, with different sizes and large Numbers, which also increases the supervision difficulty of management departments.

Third, consumers have a weak awareness of recycling. The person in charge of guangdong recycling economy association said, due to the lack of consumer awareness of the harm of waste lead-acid batteries, also can not actively participate in the recycling of waste lead-acid batteries, resulting in the life of many battery recycling equipment in name only. In addition, many consumers have no sense of resistance to illegal recycling channels.

The extended producer responsibility system must be implemented

In recent years, the establishment of extended producer responsibility system has become the industry's consensus to solve the problem of lead-acid battery recycling, some local governments, social organizations, enterprises and so on are actively implementing the extended production responsibility system for lead-acid battery.

With the continuous expansion of market demand, China has become the world's largest lead-acid battery market, and the number of waste lead-acid batteries produced every year is more than 3 million tons. The market potential of waste lead-acid battery recycling should not be underestimated. Lead plates make up 74 per cent of each cell, sulphuric acid 4 per cent and plastic 20 per cent.

For a long time, China has not established a complete recycling system for waste lead-acid batteries. Most of the waste lead-acid batteries end up in small illegal workshops for simple disassembly, with lead plates left behind and acid directly dumped. The comprehensive utilization rate is very low, causing damage to human body and ecological environment. Among the 3.3 million tons of waste lead-acid batteries produced in China every year, the proportion of formal recycling is less than 30%, which has hidden dangers of pollution.

Producer responsibility in recent years, to establish a system for solving the problem of lead-acid battery recycling has become the industry consensus, its core is through the guide the manufacturer liable for product recycling and reuse of waste after use, encourage producers to implement product source control, green production, and in the whole life cycle of products maximize resource utilization efficiency.

In December 2016, the state council general office issued the producer responsibility system implementation plan ", the lead-acid battery producer responsibility 4 kinds of products such as the implementation of system, and guide the production enterprises established in whole life cycle of product traceability system, support the introduction of "cash-for-clunkers" and so on ways to improve recovery, and explore the lead-acid battery manufacturers focus on collection and cross-regional transportation way.

In July 2017, the national development and reform commission held a seminar on the implementation plan of the extended producer responsibility system for lead-acid battery, discussed the methods and approaches to improve the system of statistics, verification, evaluation, supervision and target regulation, and put forward the recycling and utilization target and decomposition implementation plan.

In order to promote the standard recycling and utilization of lead-acid battery, some local governments, social organizations and enterprises are actively implementing the extended production responsibility system of lead-acid battery through different levels.

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