Nigeria’s used lead acid battery market is currently worth up to N100billion impelled by the growth of solar energy but informal recyclers without firm regulations, constitute a danger to themselves, the environment and the economy, since used acid batteries are the second most toxic waste next to nuclear waste, writes ISAAC ANYAOGU.
The brown earth is littered with crumbs of used plastics, scraps of metal and washed out tyres, the air is thick with the deafening sounds of iron on metal, car horns and virile voices of men who have refused to give up on life, even though it throws them curve balls at every turn.
Welcome to Apo Mechanic Village, home to welders, panel beaters auto repairers, spare part dealers, the occasional drunks and the decidedly delinquent. The shops are built from metal containers and scraps of zinc roofing sheets clinging to the ground which soaks up dark brake oil and the sweat of brawny men.
In one section, young men clad in clothes that have seen too much oil and too much toil, haul a 300 kg salon car, whose engine has been repurposed. In another section, two men reeking of engine oil, tighten screws on a dismantled Camry engine, beads of perspiration dripping down their faces, their muscles calloused as they wore the strain of the hustle on their brows.
Deep inside the market, is a section where grown men use cutlasses and heavy iron rods to hack open used batteries to extract lead from them.
Like twenty-seven year old, Nkoli Nwachukwu, who
extracts lead from used batteries for sale to importers. He drains the acid before the batteries he collects are moved to reduce the weight. Many local smelters encourage the practice by offering better prices for “dry” batteries
The process is complicated in its simplicity. Nkoli breaks open used batteries, drain the acidic water and has friends who built makeshift kilns to recycle the lead.
Nkoli, like dozens of others in Lagos and Abuja, could be dying in instalments health experts say because of the toxic nature of lead. Their makeshift operations notwithstanding, ULABs are worth billions in Nigeria.
A thriving market
A research on ULABs conducted by the Recycling and Economic Initiative Development of Nigeria (REDIN) supported by the Heinrich Boll Stiftung (HBS)Nigeria, a foundation that is canvassing proper management of ULABs, in 2016, found that every year, an estimated 110,300 tons of used lead acid batteries are generated from the transport sector with each ton sold at N340,000. This translates to a market value of N37.5billon.
The cost of transportation of each ton is put at N11,000 and at the rate of 110,300 tones, the estimated cost is put at N1.2billion.
Recent growth of solar energy has increased the quantity of batteries imported into the country. Terseer Ugbor, managing director/CEO of REDIN Recycling Industries, said the volume of imported batteries is over 250,000 tonnes annually. This puts the total value of Nigeria’s ULABs market at over N85billion. Ugbor says updated estimates put the value near N100bn.
The retail cost of used lead acid batteries ranges between N4,000 and N10,000 per unit when sold to a wholesale collector or primary recycler. Most people when they are changing their car batteries leave it with their auto shops or sell it to roadside mechanic who sell it to a retailer.
“Dealers that are collecting the battery for the purpose of recycling or exports currently have agents across the country collecting this batteries from scrap dealers or from retail outlets and transporting them to different locations across the country where they are processed for recycling or for exports,” said Ugbor.
The value chain comprises battery collection, transportation, recycling, exports and manufacturing. Nigeria has a fairly basic but organized collection, transportation and storage system for ULABs around the country, usually delivered to Onitsha, Nnewi, Asaba and Lagos state but this formal sector gets less used batteries than the informal operators.
Major ULABs dealers collect 6,000 tons of batteries nationwide (except Lagos) and transport them to Onitsha were secondary recyclers come to pick them up for transportation to their recycling plants. Lagos state certifies collectors and processers who collect as much as 5,000 tons of used batteries monthly.
Poor government take
The government however, derives little value from this market. Over 90,000 tons of ULABs are exported out of the country and exporters pay the Ministry of Environment a paltry N500 per ton.
The Nigerian Customs Service has no formal tariffs for ULABs. Sources say exporters make under the table payment of about N2,000 on a container bound for China, India and other European countries. Meanwhile a ton of lead in the international market is about $2,500.
Two companies Ibeto Group who have been producing batteries locally and exporting lead; and Metal Recycling Industries Ltd who recycle the batteries for the lead and convert to ingots for export, formally buy ULABs and have standardised recycling operations.
“But the challenge is their facilities are always empty of batteries,” said Donald Ikenna Ofoegbu, program coordinator at HBS. Despite following international best practices, these companies are squeezed by informal recyclers and exporters.
But the real trouble is that their activity is a tragedy waiting to happen.
A looming danger
HBS organised a training workshop on environmentally sound management of ULABs and the application of the benchmarking assessment tool in the context of implementing the Basel Convention on 20th October 2017 at Ibis Hotel, Lagos.
One presentation after another highlighted the danger ULABs presents. Lead-acid batteries contain sulphuric acid and large amounts of lead. The acid is extremely corrosive, and a good carrier for soluble lead and lead particulate. Lead is a highly toxic metal that produces a range of adverse health effects particularly in young children, including cardiovascular, neurological and gastrointestinal diseases like anaemia, and mental retardation.
The danger this time is not from battery manufacturing sites but solar batteries. ULABs from the bourgeoning solar market will eclipse the automobile sector. For every 6 kW solar PV installation about 8 units of batteries (400 Amp, 48 V) are needed. For urban apartments about 24 batteries are needed, for rural households about 1-4, depending on the energy consumption needs.
Nigeria’s solar PV target of 30,000 MW would require between 160-280 million batteries to be installed, replaced and then recycled according to an HBS research.
“The typical lifetime of a battery can range from about 3 to 5 years, so for an average lifespan of the PV panel of 21 years the battery replacement rate is four to seven. Most of the batteries can be expected to be lead-acid batteries as lithium-ion batteries are currently slow to enter the off-grid market,” said a HBS research.
Suleiman Yusuf, managing director of Blue Camel Energy, a renewable energy firm who provides batteries that banks use to power their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) said that his outfit generates over 600 units of 60KVa of ULABs monthly.
“So there is need for a formal regulation of the sector, because the sector is growing beyond the volume anticipated,” he said.
But Nigeria is yet to develop a distinct regulatory code for ULABs, despite the toxic nature of waste generated, ranked secondly only to nuclear material. Africa’s biggest economy has regulation dealing with toxic wastes in general but without classifying ULABs as such and codifying regulations to govern informal recycling, it undermines the health of its citizens.
“Used lead acid batteries are considered the second most toxic waste after nuclear waste. If we are going to mismanage other waste streams like plastic bottles and other packaging wastes, lead acids should be the last waste we will ever try to mismanage because of the harmful effects,” said Ugbor.
Batteries fall into two basic groups: lead acid batteries and dry cell batteries. Lead acid batteries often used to power automobiles, industrial equipment and alternative energy systems. Dry cell batteries power radios, toys, cellular phones, watches, laptop computers, portable power tools, and other consumer goods.
Recent cases of lead poisoning in Nigeria have demonstrated the risk that this toxic heavy metal poses to humans, in particular children. Lead poisoning related to unsafe lead mining caused the death of at least 163 people in 2010 in Zamfara State, including 111 children. In Niger State in 2015, an estimated 28 children below the age of 5 died of lead poisoning.
Severe cases of lead poisoning related to ULABs waste have not been recorded in Nigeria yet, but the experience of other countries serves to illustrate the risk. in 2008, a well documented case of severe lead poisoning in a Senegalese community depending on informal ULABs recycling caused the death of 18 children under the age of five.
Health surveys of workers at a secondary lead smelter in Ghana and communities living around a secondary lead smelter in Kenya revealed widespread and systematic lead poisonings with potentially fatal levels of lead in blood.
Similar communities exist in Nigeria and it does not need a tragedy to be stirred into action. While there is no data available on the health impacts and mortality in communities depending on the recycling or handling of ULABs waste in Nigeria, there is noticeable contamination of the land where illegal recycling occurs.
The costs of remediation for land contaminated by ULABs handling and processing are extremely high. Oladele Osibanjo, chief consultant of Jawura Environmental Services Limited, in his presentation at the HBS workshop highlighted the effects of auto battery slag from a decommissioned lead-acid battery factory in Ibadan. He reported severe contamination in soil, plants and grazing livestock. The local population, groundwater quality and the general environment were reportedly at high risk of lead toxicity.
“Used batteries have a standardized way they should be collected, stored and transported even before recycling; the current system doesn’t follow the right protocol. Informal recyclers do not follow any known environmental regulation or law or the international treaty, the Basel convention that Nigeria is a signatory to,” said Ugbor in his presentation at the HBS workshop.
Can the Basel convention suffice?
The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal is an international treaty designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste, except radioactive waste, between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. It came into force in 1992 and Nigeria is a signatory.
It was created partly in response to the 1988 dumping of 8,000 barrels of hazardous waste from Italy to the small town of Koko in Nigeria in exchange for $100 monthly rent paid to a Nigerian farmer for use of his farmland.
Experts say in the absence of ULABs policy, the government should domesticate the Basel convention. “We don’t need to wait for crises to develop an environmentally sound management of ULABs we can at least work with the Basel convention for now,” said Osibanjo.
According to the Basel convention, appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) should be worn when handling ULABs, they must be stacked in an upright orientation with all the vent and inspection caps firmly in place so that acid is not spilled.
It also recommend that ULABs should be stored, handled and transported in accordance with domestic hazardous waste, dangerous goods and workplace health and safety legislation. Batteries that are leaking electrolyte should be placed in a suitable plastic container.
In the absence of a distinct policy on ULABs, Nigeria has an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rule which requires a producer of hazardous material to be responsible for clean-up and care for the environment.
The national laws relating to management include the National Environmental (Sanitation and Waste Control) Regulations S. I 28 of 2009 and the National Environmental (Motor Vehicle & Miscellaneous Assembly sector) Regulations, these regulations and others have specific provisions for Extended Producer Responsibility Programme, according to M. A Amachree, director, Inspection and Enforcement Department of NESREA.
“Regulation 6 section (2) requires that all damaged and disused components including wires, electronic devices, oil filters, batteries, tyres, airbags, etc, shall be amenable to recovery under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programme,” said Amachree.
EPR shifts the responsibility for waste management from government to private industry, obliging producers, importers and/or sellers to internalise waste management costs in their product prices and ensuring the safe handling of their products.
But it is grossly inadequate in a largely unregulated market. The EPR Regulations in Nigeria have been slow to take effect because of its underlying setup as a corporate social responsibility rather than as a mandatory directive backed by legislation.
Countries like Germany, China, South Korea, South Africa, India, Canada and the United States operate the EPR after supporting it with legislation. In the United States, between 2008 and 2010, forty EPR bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country out of which 12 were signed into law. In Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD) battery take-back programs have been adopted in nearly every country and the European Commission has developed one waste directive for all of member states.
Nearly 99 million lead-acid car batteries are produced each year and each of these contains 18 pounds of lead and one pound of sulfuric acid said Andreas Manhart, from the Oeko-Institut, a leading European research and consultancy working for a sustainable future, at the HBS workshop. He further said that 90 percent of lead-acid batteries are recycled, while the un-recycled ones end up in landfills where they can leach into the surrounding soil and air.
Recycling is advanced in many countries but in Africa crude process still holds way. The estimated ULABs volume in Africa is about 1.2 million metric tons in 2016, it generates 800,000 tons of lead and represents 8% of global annual primary production of lead.
However, African countries have few uses for lead apart from illegal ammunition production, fishing gear and cooking pots. The bulk of the raw lead is exported to lead refineries in Asia and Europe which is mostly used to produce new batteries. Degrading the environment further will mean Africa is losing from both ends.
The way out is for the ministry of environment to set up a ministerial committee to domesticate the Basel Convention through a policy for the effective management and regulation of ULABs in Nigeria, shine the spotlight on activities of dirty ULAB smelters and how their activities are polluting the environment and crowding out clean ULAB recycling and thus jeopardizing the local economy and threatening jobs, says HBS.
NESREA is also urged to engage in more mapping and enforcement of shut-downs of dirty ULAB smelters especially those operating close to residential areas, schools and hospitals and properly regulate the activities of metal recycling operators and smelters in collaboration with state environmental protection agencies to ensure they operate with the benchmarked environmental standards.
