Battery recycling regulation

[agamemnus]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/sc..._r=1&ref=world

Excerpt:

NAUCALPAN DE JUÁREZ, Mexico — The spent batteries Americans turn in for recycling are increasingly being sent to Mexico, where their lead is often extracted by crude methods that are illegal in the United States, exposing plant workers and local residents to dangerous levels of a toxic metal.

The rising flow of batteries is a result of strict new Environmental Protection Agency standards on lead pollution, which make domestic recycling more difficult and expensive, but do not prohibit companies from exporting the work and the danger to countries where standards are low and enforcement is lax.

Mexican environmental officials acknowledge that they lack the money, manpower and technical capacity to police a fast-growing industry now operating in many parts of the country, often in dilapidated neighborhoods like the one here, 30 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Batteries are imported through official channels or smuggled in to satisfy a growing demand for lead, once cheap and readily available but now in short global supply. Lead batteries are crucial to cellphone networks, solar power arrays and the exploding Chinese car market, and the demand for lead has increased as much as tenfold in a decade.

An analysis of trade statistics by The New York Times shows that about 20 percent of spent American vehicle and industrial batteries are now exported to Mexico, up from 6 percent in 2007. About 20 million such batteries will cross the border this year, according to United States trade statistics, and that does not take into account batteries smuggled in as mislabeled metal scrap or second-hand goods. In September, more than 60 18-wheelers full of old batteries crossed the border each day, trade records show.

Spent batteries house up to 40 pounds of lead, which can cause high blood pressure, kidney damage and abdominal pain in adults, and serious developmental delays and behavioral problems in young children because it interferes with neurological development. When batteries are broken for recycling, the lead is released as dust and, during melting, as lead-laced emissions.

Lead battery recyclers in the United States now operate in sealed, highly mechanized plants — like labs working with dangerous germs. Their smokestacks are fitted with scrubbers, and their perimeters are surrounded by lead-monitoring devices.

TL; DR:
The recycling of batteries is closely regulated by the EPA to prevent soil contamination with such toxic metals as lead. However, the export of these batteries does not require, even in theory, for the importing factory to have the same pollution standards.

It's much less expensive to recycle the batteries without taking care that lead particles do not poison the nearby ground and air, so more and more companies are sending batteries to Mexico. This is costing American jobs as American recyclers are running out of business.

Opinion:
Eventually, some those low IQ Mexicans poisoned by lead are going to emigrate to the United States, where we will pay for their health care one way or another. The rest are going to continue allowing Mexico to remain a hell-hole because of their low IQ and other health problems, thus encouraging crime and thus maintaining the cartels and gangs, and thus continuing the drug trade problem of both Mexico and the United States.

"What comes around, goes around."

[CitizenCain]

Romans did fine, and they used lead or lead-lined pipes to deliver their water. Good point about America's regulatory environment costing jobs, but otherwise, making mountains out of molehills.

[agamemnus]

What I'm saying is that the regulations were half-baked. Should have gone all the way.

[GGT]

Romans did fine, and they used lead or lead-lined pipes to deliver their water. Good point about America's regulatory environment costing jobs, but otherwise, making mountains out of molehills.

The Romans did fine...until their Empire fell apart? Maybe their cognitive abilities were affected by long-term lead exposure, leached into their drinking water by lead pipes or lead solder, and transferred by high-lead pewter goblets and dinner plates. Just as early artists exhibited "psychosis" after years of painting with lead-based pigments, and workers handling (inhaling) bags of lead powder died early deaths.

Lead bullets shot from guns and pistols, that didn't hit vital organs or arteries, meant a slower death of lead poisoning if/when bullets couldn't be extracted. Lead is a heavy metal that doesn't leave the body once absorbed, and has a cumulative negative effect on the brain and nervous system. This is proven by bones and teeth of 18-19th century skeletons, with lead levels high enough to retard IQ. Surely you can connect that importance to today's standards.

Mercury is another element that's been regulated due to its harmful side effects, but its disposal is all over the map. After I got over the idea that we'd never have mercury thermometers again.....no one really knows what to do with their broken or spent fluorescent lightbulbs, the ones they bought because they were "greener" than incandescent bulbs.

[agamemnus]

Well... there is a strong possibility it was not lead pipes, but lead cooking equipment that actually did poison not the poor, but the Roman elite -- those who guided society and generally made up the vast majority of the culture and government in the Empire...

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/...poisoning.html

[LittleFuzzy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/sc..._r=1&ref=world

Excerpt:


TL; DR:
The recycling of batteries is closely regulated by the EPA to prevent soil contamination with such toxic metals as lead. However, the export of these batteries does not require, even in theory, for the importing factory to have the same pollution standards.

And what would you do, that does not constitute an illegitimate barrier to trade?

[CitizenCain]

The Romans did fine...until their Empire fell apart?

So you want an example of an ancient empire that didn't fall apart, then? Look, I know you think the j00s have been screwing the Amer1kan K0mm0n Man since 6,000 B.C., but that doesn't qualify "evil j00s" as an ancient empire.

And what would you do, that does not constitute an illegitimate barrier to trade?

And, more interestingly, what would he do which wouldn't ban basically all "green" tech, given that ~95% of the REEs used in "green" tech comes from China and their abhorrent environmental practices to extract those elements from their land.

[Flixy]

Romans did fine, and they used lead or lead-lined pipes to deliver their water. Good point about America's regulatory environment costing jobs, but otherwise, making mountains out of molehills.

I don't know whether this is true or not, and am too lazy to look it up to be honest, but Romans also had a much shorter lifespan in general so slow poisoning had less effects. plus things like

which can cause high blood pressure, kidney damage and abdominal pain in adults, and serious developmental delays and behavioral problems in young children because it interferes with neurological development.

were probably also happening there, just no one noticed it/ knew it was because of lead poisoning.

[Khendraja'aro]

Please tell me Cain is not seriously doubting the problematic effects of heavy metal poisoning?

[Lebanese Dragon]

There are two ways to go on this subject matter of mexican workers taking care of our batteries. Firstly we can say it's wrong or they shouldn't and try to pressure their economy and government to provide higher standards in work places (hoping in the long run that'll accelerate the work condition improvements for the citizens) or we can at least make sure the mexican recylcing companies and their workers are aware of the risk they undertake, and if they find no better option (if it's no job and be malnutritioned) or it's work at the battery recycling plant where i'm sure to get some degree of lead poisoning perhaps it's better they have that job option than not, and let them decide if it's worth the risk. Just ensure they're properly informed.

I think option two is a fair option it's like boxing both parties realize and acknowledge the great risk of death, or permanent damage, but they get paid a fair amount to take that risk, and they agree to it.

As long as they are informed of and understand the risk, I'd agree with the more Ron Paul approach and say let them decide. (In a lot of cases I'd lean this way).

[agamemnus]

And what would you do, that does not constitute an illegitimate barrier to trade?

I would require that any export company provide documentation that the plant they are exporting to is up to US standards and aggressively monitor and prosecute fraudulent paperwork.