What is the difficulty of recycling used lead-acid batteries?

How to properly dispose of used batteries, many people are still confused. The reporter's investigation found that every battery related to the life of the citizens has different recycling methods. Although the recycling of lead-acid batteries is very mature, only 1% of lead-acid batteries in Beijing have entered the formal recycling channels; lithium batteries that are about to enter the period of explosive growth still face nowhere to recover; a large number of dry batteries are being sent to landfill or incineration because of the high cost of recycling.

The Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress recently conducted the first trial of the "Beijing Municipal Regulations on Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Dangerous Wastes (Draft)", which states that units and individuals may not mix used batteries that are hazardous wastes in daily life into domestic garbage. This poses a new challenge to the recycling of used batteries. While promoting waste sorting, it is also urgent to promote the standardization and scale of waste battery recycling.

Dry battery into garbage as normal

How to deal with the 7th battery and the 5th battery without power? The battery collection was once a wind, but now in residential areas, office buildings, almost no recycling bins for used batteries.

In fact, mixing dry batteries into domestic garbage has become a helpless but rational choice. National Environmental Special Inspector and Beijing Municipal Government Counselor Weiping Wang told reporters that although dry batteries can be recycled to produce zinc, carbon rods and carbon powder, recycling is very difficult.

According to Swiss experience, the cost of recycling is four times that of producing new batteries. There is currently no professional dry battery recycling plant in China, so even if it is recycled separately in the community, no professional battery processing plant can be found.

According to the “Technical Policy for the Prevention and Control of Waste Battery Pollution” issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2003, the recycling of waste batteries should be carried out cautiously by the recycling responsible unit. At present, under the technical and economic conditions lacking effective recycling, centralized collection has been discouraged to meet the national low mercury. Or waste disposable batteries that are free of mercury. In response to questions from users, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said that the dry batteries currently on the market have reached the national requirements for low or no mercury, and are allowed to be disposed of with domestic waste after being discarded.

In the eyes of some environmentalists, batteries are still solid waste that can cause pollution. Incineration of used batteries has increased the difficulty of disposal of fly ash, and it is still necessary to improve and improve the processing capacity of used dry batteries.

In response, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has publicly stated that it is cooperating with multi-sectoral research to formulate a recycling policy for dry batteries and promote recycling trials in a timely manner.

Lead-acid batteries have a higher black market price

Compared with dry batteries, lithium batteries, which are widely used in mobile phones and computers, and lead-acid batteries used in electric bicycles and automobiles are more harmful. In the new edition of the National Hazardous Waste List, which was implemented on August 1, 2016, waste lead-acid batteries were identified as hazardous waste.

The personage inside course of study introduces, common waste recycling station does not have the qualification that recycles lead-acid battery. There are not many enterprises with the qualification of hazardous waste treatment in Beijing. At present, the waste lead-acid batteries are mainly recycled by three enterprises, including Jinyu mangrove, Beijing ecological island and Dingtai Pengyu. After being recycled by 4S stores, Banks and other institutions, the waste lead-acid batteries are transported to battery treatment plants in surrounding provinces and cities.

The regular lead battery treatment plant is far less than the size of the black market. According to the data of the Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee Urban Construction Environmental Protection Office, the annual production of waste lead storage batteries in the motor vehicle maintenance industry in Beijing is not less than 50,000 tons, but only 0.054 million tons were collected and utilized by qualified units last year.

“The biggest difficulty is that we don’t know how many batteries are in the 4S store. Many of the batteries in the back are in the black market.” A responsible person of the recycling company, who asked not to be named, said that qualified recycling companies recycle lead-acid batteries. The price is 3,000 to 4,000 Yuan a ton, but the black market can open a high price of 6,000 to 8,000 Yuan a ton.

He suggested that in the future, battery manufacturers can mark the battery with a unique code, and establish a traceability system to promote the flow of batteries to the formal recycling channels. At the same time, relevant departments should crack down on the black interest chain.

Lithium battery recycling has not changed yet

Lithium batteries that are used on a large scale in new energy vehicles will gradually enter electric bicycles in the future. However, as the end of life is approaching, lithium batteries are also facing difficulties in recycling.

The reporter recently visited some waste recycling stations and found that these sites have turned off lithium batteries. "No one wants to recycle and I don't know who to sell." A waste recycler waved again and again.

Due to high environmental protection costs and lack of profit model, there are still few waste lithium battery processing enterprises in the field, and the field is still in its infancy. However, Zhipeng Chen, CEO of Shenzhen Hengchuang Ruineng Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. told reporters that 95% of the materials in lithium batteries can be recycled, and new batteries can be made after smelting. If it is mixed with domestic garbage or burned, it will cause soil pollution or release toxic gases.

In March of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the “Implementation Plan for the Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle power battery”, and proposed to explore the recycling and utilization mode of diversified waste power batteries with strong technical economy and resource and environment, and promote the construction of recycling system. .

At present, Shenzhen is carrying out pilot work on recycling and utilization of new energy vehicles' power batteries. Some companies have developed automated equipment for disassembling lithium batteries. The relevant person in charge said that they will also consider cooperating with the courier company to recover lithium batteries through the courier channel. At the same time, the government level is also building a power battery information management platform, and improving the power battery recycling mechanism. When selling new energy vehicles, it will provide a certain amount of power battery recycling funds, and subsidize the recycling enterprises.

Although the policy level is still advancing, the industry expects that the amount of power battery scrap will enter a peak this year, and the market size in 2022 will reach 10 billion Yuan.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.