Mexico’s toxic lead-acid battery industry

News

Mexico is still failing to adequately address the environmental and occupational risks of lead, making it a haven for the recycling of spent lead-acid batteries from Canada and the United States.

But news that the Mexican government is about to introduce a new regulation covering lead recycling management and the maximum limits on blood lead levels, is seen by some as proof that the negative environmental impact of the practice could finally be curtailed.

In addition, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is discussing a set of voluntary technical guidelines (the draft of which Equal Times has been able to consult) on best practices and technologies fostering the environmentally-sound management of spent lead-acid batteries.

Experts, however, argue that these tools are unlikely to change how the industry operates or to reduce the impact on the environment and workers’ health.

“In Mexico, regulations are not complied with. The authorities should monitor them, but they are submissive,” says Cuauhtémoc Juárez, a professor at the medical faculty of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

“Mexican companies have no interest in the matter, because there are no penalties.

They refuse to give us access [to their plants], we don’t know what the situation is, what levels of pollution there are, there is very little research. Mexico will continue to be a recycling haven,” he said.

For the last ten years or so, Mexico’s lax regulations and low costs have made it the main destination for spent car batteries, the recycling of which is a lucrative business for Canadian, US and Mexican corporations.

The number of spent lead-acid batteries entering Mexico has been rising constantly since 2007. In 2012, the country imported 863,164 tonnes and in May 2013 the figure stood at 153,283.

Battery Council International reports that the three countries recycle almost 100 per cent of all lead-acid batteries, given that it costs less to recycle lead than to extract it from mines and process it, and it can be recycled indefinitely.

“If monitoring mechanisms were introduced to companies in Mexico which held them to the same standards as in the rest of North America, within four or five years things would change,” Marisa Jacott, director of environmental organisation Fronteras Comunes, tells Equal Times.

Large amounts of lead are recovered and recycled in secondary lead smelting plants. It is then used to manufacture new batteries, which usually contain between 60 and 80 per cent recycled lead and plastic.

But lead is toxic, persistent and bioaccumulative, and the management of spent lead-acid batteries has major environmental, economic and health implications

Lead is absorbed by the body and causes damage to the nervous system, the heart, kidneys, bones and reproductive organs.

 

A long way to go

The aim of the guidelines that the CEC is discussing with governments, companies, academics and civil society is to establish common standards in the sector.

The Commission – set up within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States and Mexico that came into force in 1994 – points out that whilst stricter environmental regulation has led to improvements in Canada and the United States, the same cannot be said of Mexico.

There are 10 smelters in Canada, with an annual installed capacity of 475,550 tonnes.

Mexico, in comparison, has 25 smelters, processing 1,504,669 tonnes, while the United States has 14, processing 1,874,387 tonnes.

According to the findings of the US-based organisation Occupational Knowledge International and Fronteras Comunes, airborne lead emissions from lead battery recycling plants in Mexico are approximately 20 times higher than those in the United States and the blood lead levels of Mexican workers in the sector are as much as five times higher.

“There are serious doubts about the actual number of workers exposed to lead. There is a population exposed to lead that is not quantified,” says Juárez.

Mexico has at least nine regulations on the use and management of lead, most of which date back over ten years.

According to the Mexican Institute of Social Security, there has been a fall in lead poisoning in the workplace since the 1990s, although the figure rose to 80 cases in 2004.

In 2010, there were 28 cases – up 18 on the 2009 figures. But, according to Juárez, the data is under-recorded, as many companies fail to report cases.

The CEC points out that the environmentally-sound management of lead implies the monitoring of air pollution and fugitive emissions, the treatment of wastewater, and solid waste management.

Although the future regulation establishes equivalent maximum blood lead levels, differences remain in terms of monitoring, and the deadline for reaching them is four years.

“The regulation does not specify how monitoring is to be conducted. The deadline is very long. There is no monitoring for the workers, nor is there environmental monitoring,” criticises Jacott.

The CEC is planning to measure emissions at plant level and may add other contaminants as part of research that is about to start in Mexico.