> More to the point, lead-acid batteries are not recycled at "nearly 100%" as
> claimed. If you look at the numbers provided by the lead industry
itself, at
> _least_ 30% of them escape the recycling stream
Hopefully, whoever does this sort of bean counting took into account
the number of batteries still in useful service, and adjusted for
those that are still installed in inoperable or stored equipment and
vehicles that will eventually return them for recycling.
There is also a portion of lead, which includes batteries, that gets
shunted to other uses outside the recycling stream. Private reuse of
lead for ammunition, nautical ballast, etc might account for some of
the discrepancy. I suspect that there may also be some hoarding of
lead for speculative purposes, and by preppers who worry about the
zombie apocalypse
With commodity prices being what they are, and active gathering and
recycling of scrap, including non-ferrous metals, by a wide selection
of citizenry, I can't see 30% of batteries being dumped in rivers, etc.
Home Power magazine did a couple of in-depth, first-person articles
on lead battery recycling some years back. While not absolutely
definitive, it represents some independent research on the subject.
If anyone is interested, I can rip and post some PDF's or dig up
links to the articles on the HP web site.
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