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Metal Recycling News November 30, 2010 11:19:40 AM

Lead poisoning rampant in India battery recycling

Paul Ploumis
ScrapMonster Author
The workers involved in recycling lead-acid batteries are prone to lead poisoning as the business zooms on increased consumption across the country

NEW DELHI (SCRAPMONSTER): The workers involved in recycling lead-acid batteries are prone to lead poisoning as the business zooms on increased consumption across the country, according to a report in Livemint. The report states that lead-acid battery business could be in the range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 18,000 crore.

Livemint quoted a study by Bangalore-based National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning (NRLCPI) which showed that workers in Tamilnadu, Bangalore, Secunderabad and Pune had alarming levels of lead in their blood samples. About 46-80% had blood lead counts higher than 43 micrograms per decilitre (mcg/dl), the permissible limit set by the US-based Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

India has not established biological exposure indices for lead or other hazardous chemicals for the workplace. It follows standards established by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists; the maximum permissible lead level in those standards is more stringent, at 30 mcg/dl, the report added.Most of these violations have escaped government scrutiny, in part because the market is scattered, employing several lakh people

Another report in Livemint graphically portrays how unorganised lead batter recycling is thriving in many places in the country. The used batteries are ripped open by axes with the worker's bare hands and is burnt in the smelter to collect the lustrous silver liquid in casts before it clots into hard metal.

Much of this clandestine activity carries on taking full advantage of weak implementation of pollution laws, with long-term public health consequences. The World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 120 million people living in the developing world are "overexposed" to lead—roughly three times the number of people infected by HIV, the report added.

A 2008 survey of unregistered recyclers in Hubli, in Karnataka, by the National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India (NRCLPI) found blood lead levels of 90-160 micrograms per decilitre (mg/dl)—three to six times higher than the limit permissible on factory premises. The introduction of unleaded petrol in the early part of this decade brought lead levels in the air down to a certain degree, but scattered recycling outfits are having the opposite effect as far as pollution control goes.

Lead scrap in batteries need to be recycled in controlled environments in view of the health hazard it poses. There is more concentrated lead in one battery than in 26,944 cellphones or six television sets. The 2003 Basel Convention imposes strict restrictions on cross-border battery trading.

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