As U.S. tightens rules on lead, battery recycling moves to Mexico

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

As U.S. tightens rules on lead, battery recycling moves to Mexico
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: 03/31/2013 12:01:00 AM CDT

CIENEGA DE FLORES, Mexico -- When an American replaces the battery in a car, likely as not the old battery will be shipped to Mexico rather than trucked to a modern U.S. recycling plant.

U.S. recyclers have some of the world's top technology for safely breaking apart batteries to smelt the lead for reuse. But U.S. recycling plants are closing down or standing idle.

Plants in Mexico are not.

Mexico has won a leg up for a reason: Its lead emissions standards are one-tenth as stringent as U.S. standards. Mexican factories can ignore strict U.S. regulations that cap harmful lead emissions onto factory floors and into the air.

The result has been an ever-increasing surge in the trade of used batteries across the border. One watchdog group estimated that in 2011, the dead batteries headed to Mexico would have filled 17,952 tractor-trailers. And the trade keeps growing, the result of a stark regulatory gap that has left Mexico at risk of becoming a "pollution haven," according to a Montreal-based commission that investigates environmental issues under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the economic accord between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Read more: http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_22903249/u-s-tightens-rules-lead-battery-recycling-moves