Mexico’s plans for secondary lead smelting regulations are too weak to cope with the high amount of used car batteries in Mexican factories, according to US lead-acid battery recycler RSR.
The proposal wants to set limits for lead emissions from the exhaust stacks of secondary smelters. According to RSR, almost one billion pounds of spent lead acid batteries are exported to Mexican recyclers each year.
“Unfortunately, the proposed Mexican standards fall woefully short. Not only are the proposed standards inadequate to protect human health and the environment from dangerous emissions but they fail to meet parity with its NAFTA partners”, commented Robert Finn, president and CEO of RSR. The emission plan is still 140 times higher than limits in the US, he added.
“If the Mexican government is serious about protecting human and environmental health it will lower lead emission levels to 0.2 mg/m3”, said Finn. He suggested to close loopholes in the proposed regulation and to adopt the monitoring processes from the US, which are determined by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
20% of US batteries are going to recycling facilities in Mexico, said Chris Bryant, spokesman of RSR, to American Metal Market: “The reason the batteries are going to Mexico is because it is cheaper to recycle them due to disparity between the regulations governing Mexican smelters vs. American smelters.” The proposed changes will likely fall about 20 years behind US standards, he claimed.
