The lead battery recycling process can be repeated indefinitely, meaning that new lead batteries are made with materials that have been recycled many times over. In 2014 a review by IHS Markit1 concluded that 99% of all automotive lead batteries available for col-lection in the EU are collected and sent for recycling.
Indeed, in 2020 most of the Member States reported recycling efficiencies of lead-acid batteries that were well above the target. Five Member States reported a recycling efficiency of more than 90 % and 14 a recycling efficiency in the range between 80 % and 90 %.
Inappropriate recycling operations release considerable amounts of lead particles and fumes emitted into the air, deposited onto soil, water bodies and other surfaces, with both environment and human health negative impacts. Lead-acid batteries are the most widely and commonly used rechargeable batteries in the automotive and industrial sector.
The batteries that can be considered waste batteries and were exported therefore represent only 0.8% of the total made-available waste lead automotive batteries. Our previous study conducted for the period 2010-2012 had estimated a collection and recycling rate of 99%.
To a broader level, the entire life cycle of lead-acid battery needs to be considered that are raw materials production, lead-acid battery design, production and consumption, end-of-life process including collection of spent LABs and recycling or reuse of lead for lead acid battery (Fig. 9) (Sun et al., 2017).
The batteries contain large amounts of lead either as solid metal or lead-oxide powder. An average battery can contain up to 10 kilograms of lead.