Dive summary:
- As U.S. regulations regarding lead emissions are tightening up, batteries are moving from the U.S. to Mexico to be recycled in large part because of Mexico’s 10 times less stringent regulations.
- The U.S. has developed technology to make battery recycling safe but U.S. plants are shutting down or remaining idle in favor of less regulated Mexican plants with a fraction of the health and safety in mind for workers and pollution standards.
- One watchdog group estimated that in 2011, 17,952 tractor-trailers full of dead batteries were carried into Mexico from the U.S.
From the article:
The NAFTA environmental cooperation commission issued a draft report in November citing a dramatic increase in exports of spent lead-acid batteries, or SLABS, to Mexico over the past decade.
“According to our estimates, between 2004 and 2011, the U.S. exports of SLABs to Mexico increased by anywhere from 449 percent to 525 percent,” Coronado said.
It’s not just environmentalists worried about the issue. U.S. smelters and recycling firms that don’t have operations in Mexico also are demanding that the environmental bar be raised for companies in Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Canada. ...
