Lead Battery Recycling

Will Lead Recycling in Africa and SE Asia become "the next Flint"?

Outsourcing our environmental toxics to 3rd World Countries can backfire.

Week ending December 6, 2025

December 3, 2025. Union of Concerned Scientists. How Recycling Is Done Matters—Lessons Learned from the Lead-Acid Battery "The atrocities of unregulated lead-acid battery recycling across Africa were recently investigated in a New York Times article. This account brought due attention to a pollution problem that has also resulted in a public health disaster here in the United States. Steps should be taken to clean up this industry, and lessons from this failure can help ensure better outcomes in other essential efforts, such as lithium-ion battery recycling."

Week ending November 30, 2025

• Nov. 18, 2025, NYT Gift Article Recycling Lead for U.S. Car Batteries Is Poisoning People "POISONOUS DUST falls from the sky over the town of Ogijo, near Lagos, Nigeria. It coats kitchen floors, vegetable gardens, churchyards and schoolyards. The toxic soot billows from crude factories that recycle lead for American companies. With every breath, people inhale invisible lead particles and absorb them into their bloodstream. The metal seeps into their brains, wreaking havoc on their nervous systems. It damages livers and kidneys. Toddlers ingest the dust by crawling across floors, playgrounds and backyards, then putting their hands in their mouths."

• Nov. 25, 2025 NYT Gift Article The Auto Industry Was Warned: Battery Recycling Was Poisoning People "Despite decades of evidence on the toxic effects of lead battery recycling, companies opted not to act and blocked efforts to clean up the industry. At Ford Motor Company headquarters near Detroit, Phillip Toyne, a shy Australian lawyer, warned executives in 2005 that the lead inside car batteries was poisoning people. Lead is an essential, but toxic, element of car batteries. As demand rose, the auto industry increased its use of recycled lead. But many recycling factories around the world were pumping toxic smoke into communities. Mr. Toyne, records show, pitched a solution: a program in which inspectors would certify factories that operated cleanly. Car manufacturers and battery makers could then market themselves as buying only from environmentally friendly suppliers. It went nowhere." Fallout from the NYT Series on battery recycling.

Ford Among Automakers Not Taking Action On Lead Poisoning: Report

Recycled lead used in U.S. auto batteries linked to poisoning in African communities

November 29, 2025. Lead Poison: Ogun Govt moves to suspend lead exports, shuts battery recycling plants "In addition, Chris Pruitt, executive chairman of the board of East Penn Manufacturing, a major US battery maker with ties to Nigerian companies, told The Examination and partner newsrooms that East Penn stopped buying lead from Nigeria and began to tighten its supplier code of conduct."