Frederick Adjei and Andreas Manhart of Germany’s Öko-Institut and Franziska Weber from Platform Lead explain a project on environmentally sound lead-acid battery recycling in Nigeria, a middle-income country. It is called Partnership for Responsible Battery and Metal Recycling (ProBaMet).

One hour’s drive from one of the biggest cities in Africa, the battery recycling industry is growing steadily. It is profiting from a never-ending hunger for mobility in the restless centre of the capital Lagos, the demand for back-up solutions to bridge the regular power blackouts and the need to store solar-generated power in more rural areas.

Although all battery types are available in Nigeria, lead-acid batteries still dominate the market as they are comparably affordable and robust. Nigeria is one of the largest lead-acid battery recycling industries in sub-Saharan Africa.

While lead-acid battery recycling is based on best available technologies in many countries, Nigeria, as many other low- and middle-income countries, has a history of poor standards with severe impacts on people and the environment. But Nigeria also has a history of highly active government and non-government organisations working hard to change this status for the better.

Engagement of locals

The engagement of local actors was fundamental when starting ProBaMet earlier this year. The project aims at supporting the upgrading of the lead-acid battery recycling industry in Nigeria and held its second intensive working week in Lagos and Ogun State in September.

The project was previously introduced to local stakeholders, who conducted assessments of most of the existing battery recycling plants. A recent visit focused on equipping regulators, recyclers and other stakeholders on international good practice in end-of-life management of lead-acid batteries.

Both working weeks revealed relevant insights in the technical and regulatory landscape of battery recycling in Nigeria:

• While used and end-of-life batteries are commonly collected by informal sector networks, recycling is dominated by more than 10 large formal recycling plants – most of them located in Ogun State. A few use the recycled lead to manufacture new lead-acid batteries for the Nigerian market. All other plants produce refined lead for export.
• The environmental, health and safety conditions in most plants are clearly sub-standard. While all plants use rotary furnaces linked to off-gas treatment systems, most recycling steps such as battery breaking, furnace charging, tapping, lead refining and casting are subject to numerous shortcomings and are far from established good practices. Moreover, housekeeping, dust control and hygiene standards are dire, with lead dust accumulations within and around the facilities, insufficient personal protection equipment or workwear, amenities and widely inadequate health monitoring and blood lead testing. Workers and neighbouring communities are thus exposed to excessive lead emissions. Of the visited plants, one clearly sticks out positively.
• The sector is newly regulated by a National Environmental (Battery Control) Regulation, passed in March 2024 and gazetted in August. The law defines the scope of obliged parties (producers, importers, original equipment manufacturers, end-users, recyclers, etc.) and their responsibilities over the lifecycle of new and used batteries. It comes with elements of extended producer responsibility (EPR) and defines punitive fines and prison terms for environmental pollution because of environmentally unsound management of ULABs.
• With Nigeria being a federal state, there are two government layers responsible for regulatory oversight, licensing and conformity assessment. On a national level, this is the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment and its enforcement unit, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency. On a regional level, Ogun State Environmental Protection Agency and Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency come into play. Furthermore, there is the producer responsibility organisation Alliance for Responsible Battery Recycling, which keeps on oversight over the Nigerian battery landscape and that is tasked with developing an EPR mechanism as foreseen in the new Battery Control Regulation.
• Willingness of regulatory bodies to push for positive change in this sector is high and – since the Battery Control Regulation was gazetted – there is even more political backing. Various recyclers also showed interest in improving operations, but often face limitations due to their economic situation: Informal networks commonly sell their collected batteries to the highest bidding recycler and implementation of higher standards can endanger a recycler’s ability to compete in this market.

Upgrading through intervention

In this situation, the ProBaMet approach supports the upgrading of the recycling sector through three intervention levels:

1. providing training on environmental health and safety to recycling facilities
2. creating incentives to facility improvements by supporting Nigerian regulatory authorities in their enforcement
3. creating business opportunities for high-standard recycling through a coalition of solar companies looking for responsible battery disposal and international companies sourcing secondary raw materials from approved facilities.

The recent working week primarily focused on training. Recyclers, regulators and other key stakeholders were trained in applying the standard operating procedures (SOPs) in plant set-up, management and regulatory conformity assessment.

The team used an assessment form based on the SOPs but further developed through support from the International Lead Association, Eurobat and Battery Council International. Classroom training was followed by two-day field visits to three plants to test their newly learned facility assessment skills.

The effort began with a second visit to Green Recycling. It stands out among all other facilities visited in Nigeria with remarkably higher environmental and operating standards. Battery delivery, offloading, battery breaking and smelting widely apply good available industry practices. The standard comes at a high cost. The plant management explained they faced difficulties in sourcing batteries due to their inability to compete with higher premiums paid by lower-standard plants.

This subsequently confirms that strategies aiming at a systematic upgrade of this sector rely on a combination of mandatory minimum standards, enforcement and market incentives benefitting best performers. With the new regulation, Nigerian stakeholders have started to work out elements of a sector upgrade strategy that includes implementing regular controls.

From the other end, upstream and downstream sectors can significantly contribute by prioritising business relationships with confirmed best performers. This applies to players that control end-of-life battery volumes (e.g., renewable energy companies, mobile network providers, automotive industries), as well as buyers of lead and lead alloys from the Nigerian and international market.

Positive listing

To support such efforts, the Öko-Institut has initiated a positive listing of responsible lead-acid battery recyclers in low- and middle-income countries. It covers Nigeria and mentions Green Recycling as having:

• met all applicable regulations in the respective country/region
• operated significantly above the commonly encountered national industry practices
• complied with a minimum set of requirements on key aspects of the SOPs
• been committed to continuous improvements with a view to full compliance with all established good SOP practices within three years.

Systematic upgrades needed

While Nigeria is currently the project focus, situations around lead-acid battery recycling are very similar in many low- and middle-income countries. A strong push for systematic sector upgrades in low- and middle-income countries is needed. That will not end with the finalisation of the project in 2025 but will require the continuous effort of all stakeholders.

About the project

The project implementing team of the ProBaMet comprises of researchers from Öko-Institut, the head of Platform Lead (an initiative of WirtschaftVereinigung Metalle) supported by the ILA, researchers from the Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria) and members of the Alliance for Rural Electrification. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and supported by the international development agency GIZ.