Chinese lead-acid battery firm Senrun Recycling Metal Products has announced a ¥120 million ($17 million) investment in a scrap lead-acid battery recycling project.
The project aims to turn 150,000 mt of scrap batteries into 75,800 mt of refined lead and lead alloy annually at the Metallurgical and Chemical Park of Linxi Industrial Park, Chifeng, City, Inner Mongolia.
Senrun is set to build a full-automatic battery crushing and sorting machine, production lines of secondary lead, plastic, soot shaping, lead polar plate and other supporting facilities.
The development has a projected annual turnover of ¥996 million ($144million) and profits of ¥22.61 million ($3 million), reported newspaper Wulanhad Daily.
According to one Chinese firm, around 200 million lead-acid batteries are discarded in China each year— that’s about 500,000 tonnes of lead per year, or around $1billion in metal value.
In last week’s BBB, Guangzhou Hong Huai Energy Company claimed it has developed a way of reusing 50m lead-acid batteries a year.
Non Government Organisation Pure Earth and Green Cross Switzerland reported the backyard battery recycling industry is one of the worst polluting problems in low and middle-income countries.
Industrial pollution is a sensitive and painful subject in China.
The country has introduced a raft of measures aimed at curbing the perceived issues around lead-acid, including closing 90% of lead-acid battery plants, and raising consumption tax by 4%.
Whether this latest project is a case of China moving the problem to other areas to allow it to play the ‘Green’ card is a moot point.
