Power Failure: The Battered Legacy of Leaded Batteries

Abstract

Viewpoint pubs.acs.org/est Power Failure: The Battered Legacy of Leaded Batteries Oladele A. Ogunseitan* Program in Public Health and School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, United States flow of toxic products intact. The U.S. has not ratified the Basel Convention. Rather, lead-acid batteries are regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976, as part of negotiations to harmonize U.S. policies with initiatives of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop- ment. 4 Individual states in the U.S. stipulate either mandatory or voluntary cash deposits, typically $5−10, for used batteries returned by consumers at the point of purchase of a new lead- acid battery. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the high “recycling” rate of lead-acid battery as evidence of successful public-private partnerships in pollution prevention policy. 4 The apparent success of the retailer take-back program masked growing concerns about pollution and health impacts created by battery recycling in developing countries, until similar problems emerged within continental U.S., exemplified by a recent case in California. In February, 2016, California Governor Jerry Brown proposed spending $176.6 million to accelerate the testing and cleanup of thousands of lead- contaminated homes surrounding the troubled Exide battery recycling facility in the Vernon district of Los Angeles, which is predominantly populated by families in the lower socio- he history of automobiles is inextricable from the story of economic category. 5 The funds will support testing 10 000 one of the most pervasive toxic chemical exposures in homes within 1.7 miles of the closed facility and the removal of modern human history. Globally, billions of people were lead-contaminated soil from about 2500 homes where levels poisoned by lead (Pb) between 1921, when General Motors pose the greatest risk of poisoning. 5 Corporation introduced tetraethyl lead as an antiknock agent in Unfortunately, the Exide-linked pollution in Los Angeles is gasoline-powered cars, until 2015, when leaded gasoline was only a “tip of the iceberg” in terms of global impacts of lead scheduled to be phased out in Algeria, the last country still poisoning from batteries. The international market for using leaded gasoline. reclaiming lead is growing rapidly, 2 and battery-recycling The elimination of lead from gasoline is one of the greatest operations can be found in almost every city in the developing milestones in public health. Regulatory policies were world. Battery smelting operations are often located in densely instrumental in achieving the phase-out of leaded gasoline, populated areas with inadequate pollution controls. Regulatory and these were informed by incontrovertible scientific evidence policies that supported high rates of battery recycling also that there are no safe levels of exposure to lead and that dampened interest in developing safer lead-free alternatives. children are particularly susceptible to its adverse health The emergence of hybrid and full electric automobiles has effects. 1 Unfortunately, lead remains a tenacious toxicant spurred the development of advanced lithium-ion batteries, but because of ubiquitous lead-acid batteries that power more these may have their own safety concerns. than a billion cars on the road today. T EMPOWERING INNOVATION California’s landmark Safer Consumer Products Law of 2013 requires manufacturers to seek safer alternatives to harmful chemical ingredients in widely used products. At the federal level, the U.S. EPA uses alternatives analysis (AA) as part of chemical action plans in its chemical management program. Similarly, the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) program imposes alternatives analysis obligations upon certain partic- A FAILED POLICY ON RECYCLING In 2015, ∼90% of 1.62 million tons of lead consumed in the United States was for production of >94.1 million lead-acid batteries. 2 These batteries have an international life cycle: during the first 8 months of 2015, 19.3 million spent lead-acid batteries, containing an estimated 167 000 tons of lead, 2 were exported to low- and middle income countries where they fed hazardous industries for materials recovery. Spent lead-acid batteries are recognized as hazardous waste under Annex VIII of the United Nation’s Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. 3 However, several loopholes keep the international © 2016 American Chemical Society Received: June 24, 2016 Published: July 28, 2016 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b03174 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, 50, 8401−8402