Data released to the public on April 2 from the International Lead Association and EUROBAT revealed that EU member states collectively export around €2 billion ($2.2 billion) of lead acid batteries alone to countries outside the bloc, including Russia.
In addition, customs statistics (Fig. 3) reflect the high growth rate of lead–acid battery exports from China, which declined at a stable rate after 2016. In 2018, the lead–acid battery export volume for China reached 190.23 million, whereas the import volume was only 10.94 million [16, 17].
Status of waste lead-acid battery generation Globally, approximately 10 million tons of lead is used to produce LABs annually, accounting for over 85% of lead production (Machado Santos et al., 2019; Prengaman, 2000; Tan et al., 2019).
Denmark and the Netherlands levy a tax on each lead battery or vehicle to pay for the collection of lead batteries and subsidize the loss-making process of secondary lead recycling. Greece and Ireland have established funding programs to finance project development and related research on lead batteries and other metal recycling projects.
In 2018, the lead–acid battery export volume for China reached 190.23 million, whereas the import volume was only 10.94 million [16, 17]. This high-trade deficit is one of the major causes of the relatively low lead-recycling rate in China.
As for the recycled waste batteries, the primary lead industry can take lead concentrate or higher grade lead concentrate after sintering as the main raw material, and lead-containing waste in waste lead-acid batteries such as lead paste from a small number of WLABs as auxiliary ingredients.