Ministry of Health
San José, Costa Rica
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Geneva, Switzerland
Lead Acid Batteries in Costa Rica
Country Report
November 2002
Anna M. Ortiz
Environmental Consultant
Table of Contents
Page
I. Executive Summary 4
II. Background 6
A. National Situation 6
B. Present System Flaws 7
C. Rural and Urban Recycling 8
D. Waste Management 9
III. Macro-economic and Legal Characteristics 10
A. Battery Related Supply and Demand 10
B. Collection and Transport 12
C. Recycling Industry 13
D. Trade 14
E. Legal Regulatory Framework 16
IV. Existing Collection and Recycling Scheme 27
A. Practices in the informal sector 27
B. Recommendations for short term improvement 27
V. Small Battery Recyclers, Secondary Lead Smelters 31
A. General Comments 31
B. Recommendations 32
C. Regional Cooperation 33
VI. Conclusions and Recommendations National Action Plan 34
A. National Action Plan 35
B. Legal norms and regulations for the Action Plan 36
C. Conclusions 40
VII. References 41
Annex 1
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The improper management and final disposal of lead acid batteries is an environmental and health problem that increases along side the number of vehicles that in all the cities of the world. Costa Rica is not an exception, the amount of cars in use registered for the year 2002 is approximately 900.000 vehicles, with an increase rate of 50,000 vehicles per year.
In the past the batteries were thrown in the regular trash that goes to municipal landfills, and in the worst cases they were simply left on the street, thrown in empty lots, or dumped in the rivers.
The existing informal recycling scheme is made up of general recyclers of all sorts of waste, ranging from glass, plastic, paper, carton to industrial and commercial scrap metals. The battery distributors at times become recyclers since they receive old batteries when they sell a new one. This scheme has not developed in an organized manner instead it is the result of the recent monetary value that battery manufacturers, importers and lead smelters have placed on them.
The purpose of this report is to analyze the existing recycling scheme, the legal and regulatory framework and propose a possible solution to the deficiencies found in these two aspects. The report, “ Lead – Acid Battery Recycling in Costa Rica” , done by the students of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute was reviewed and the observations and recommendations were addressed in this document.
An extensive review was done of all the laws, norms and regulations that exist in order to determine what legislation already in use would be a useful tool for the implementing of necessary reforms.
The laws, norms and regulations that are in place were created for the management of all toxic waste in general and are lacking specific ones for used lead-acid batteries. There is an urgent need for the regulating institutions to propose an alternative system that is organized and guarantees the environmental sound management of the used lead batteries. Some recommendations were made on new legislation that is needed, as well as some economic and regulating instruments that would be useful.
One of the most important aspects is that the used batteries have a price that is paid for their return to the manufacturer, but the environmental cost of collecting, and managing them in an environmentally sound manner until they get back to the manufacturer is not tied to the manufacturer, importer, distributor or the final consumer. All of these sectors receive a benefit from the battery, some as a profit and others as a service, but in the long run no one pays for the correct management and final disposal. In short, there is no internalization of the environmental cost that should be included in every one of these sectors cost structure, be it production budget, sales budget or personal vehicle use budget.
Another important flaw of the existing system is that the Basel Convention Protocol is not being fulfilled for the exporting of used lead batteries. This although is common in most of the countries in the region. The regulating institutions of the importing and the exporting countries have had coordination problems with the customs authorities to avoid the illegal passage of waste without proper documentation.
The formal recycling scheme proposed is based on new legal regulations that will incorporate a tax or tribute on the importing, producing or usage of lead batteries. This tribute must be equivalent to the cost of proper collection, management and final disposal and a remaining amount to provide economic resources for the establishing of a proper monitoring and control system.
This new proposal known in other countries as a Take Back Center will allow for the involving of the existing informal scheme members as part of the administrative and operating structure.
A system that involves regulating institutions and other social sectors under a private enterprise concept of operation will produce a more efficient collection and the proper management of the used batteries.
II. BACKGROUND
A. National Situation
The recycling of used lead batteries is something relatively recent in the history of Costa Rica. For many years used batteries were simply thrown in empty lots, put in the ordinary domestic trash bins or simply left lying around garages or mechanical shops along with other generated wastes. It is not until the used lead batteries have a monetary value placed on them, by the manufacturing companies and other users, who recycle the components in their production process that an informal battery recycling sector begins to come to life. The informal battery recycling sector is part of a larger general recycling sector that is made up of collectors and buyers of other waste that have an alternative use such as glass, paper, plastic, aluminum, heavy metals, and scrap iron pieces.
This battery recycling sector is composed of new battery manufacturers, general waste recyclers, lead smelters and black box battery producers. Each one of these members plays a role in the recycling of the used lead batteries.
In Costa Rica, there are two local new battery manufacturers who have small amounts of production as compared to the importers and distribuitors who make up the majority of the supply. Most of the automotive batteries are imported from either El Salvador, Venezuela, the United States or Asia and the industrial ones are basically from the United States.
The two main receivers of the batteries coming from the informal battery recycling sector is a large transport broker who represents Baterias de El Salvador, the largest battery manufacturer in the Central American Region. There is one other distributor, Baterias Duncan, who has exported one or two containers to Venezuela in the past but is not doing so at the present time. They have decided not to collect the batteries and the little that they do is sent to Baterias de El Salvador.
The transport broker has the responsibility of loading onto containers the batteries that battery distribuitors and general recyclers collect through their different systems, and forward them to El Salvador.
The general recyclers do sell small amounts of their batteries to few backyard smelters, battery reconditioners and secondary lead smelters. The secondary lead smelters in turn take the batteries apart and smelter the lead and export it as non battery lead scrap mainly to Panama.
B. Present system flaws
The present informal recycling system has many flaws that need to be discussed.
1. Lack of public awareness of the dangers involved.
The first of them is a lack of public awareness with respect to the environmental and occupational hazards associated with the improper handling of used lead batteries. The batteries are collected and loaded on to trucks without any protective equipment, such as masks, gloves or suits. The sulfuric acid extracted from the batteries is in some cases collected for recycling and in the majority of the cases it is drained into the public sewer system.
2. Inefficient legal and regulatory framework.
The existing legal and regulatory framework regarding to the management and final disposal of used lead batteries is limited to laws and regulations related to toxic waste. There is no specific regulation or legislation for used lead batteries that obligates the returning neither of the used ones nor of an environmental responsibility for damage incurred during improper disposal. This makes it very difficult in organizing the importers, distributors, and consumers to return the used batteries to any entity for recycling.
Along the same lines there are no economic regulatory instruments that guarantee the collection of the used batteries, by the different participating sectors of the battery life cycle. Later on in this project, the existing legal and regulatory framework is analyzed. Also in the recommendations for a National Policy for the environmentally safe management of used batteries there is a brief description of the legal and regulatory framework modifications, that must be implemented in order for a this recycling scheme to be successful.
3. Non fulfillment of the Basel Convention protocol for the exporting of the used batteries to the countries.
The used batteries that are being exported, with the exception of the small amount that have gone to Venezuela, are leaving the country without fulfilling any of the Basel Convention requirements. This is occurring because the customs officials are not checking what is actually being transported, and what is being declared on the customs declarations.
In the year 2000 the Ministry of Health, as Competent Authority, requested the approval of a Notification of Transfrontier Movement of toxic waste from Nicaragua (transit), Honduras (transit) and El Salvador (importer) for the used batteries sent to this last country. The request for approval to export was presented by a transporter of the used batteries and processed by the Ministry of Health for its approval. For several reasons that are still not clear, the Notification of Transfrontier Movement was never denied nor approved. At any rate, the used batteries continue to be transported without fulfilling any of the Basel Convention requirements.
In one case in particular in the year 2001, Costa Rica received an accusation from the Competent Authority in Panama that battery waste being exported to their country without the proper documentation.
There is no real form of quantifying the amount of batteries that are exported since there is no record of their exports by the Ministry of Health or by the Customs Officials. This makes it difficult to determine what percentage of the total imported or manufactured batteries are being collected.
4. Improper storage.
The batteries that are collected and temporarily stored for recycling by the collectors are not stored in environmentally and occupationally secure forms. Many times they are piled onto wooden pallets and the remnants of sulfuric acid drains onto the floor or on the ground. There are no security measures as to where and how to store the batteries. The handling is done without much protective gear or equipment.
C. Rural and urban recycling
Used batteries in rural areas of the country are either collected by the distribuitors of the new batteries or they are collected in an informal manner by the general waste recyclers.
The general waste recyclers place a large truck in an important city of the rural province and use smaller trucks to go house by house requesting recyclable waste for collection. When the smaller truck is full it returns to the larger truck and passes the waste over to it and then returns to his collection route.
In general the concept of used batteries being left in empty lots or on the side of the road has changed drastically since they have acquired a monetary value.
The existing informal recycling scheme is located in the urban areas of the country. The general waste recyclers and the lead smelters are all located in these areas. Without statistical information to verify the amount of batteries imported or manufactured with the amount of batteries collected for recycling it is difficult to determine what percentage of these batteries are being recycled. From interviews and conversations with the collectors and the transporter a conservative estimate is that a 50% to 65% of all the batteries are being exported for recycling while the remaining is being used by the lead smelters or being exported illegally as scrap battery waste, camouflaged as totally smeltered lead for reuse of its components.
D. Waste management
In the informal recycling sector there are many deficiencies as far as proper environmentally safe storage and correct disposal or reformulation of the sulfuric acid that comes in the used batteries. Many of the recyclers state that they do not receive batteries that still have the acid inside, but location visits demonstrate the contrary.
III. MACRO- ECONOMIC AND LEGAL CHARACTERISTICS
A. Battery related supply and demand
The most recent studies done by the Direction of Energy Demand Studies, Costa Rican Refinery Company, indicate that for the year 2000 the country had a total of 677.883 vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc.). If we use the year 2000 data and project these numbers using an average increase of 57,000 vehicles per year, as indicated in the latest Environmental Report 2002 issued by the Ministry of Environment and Energy, we would end up with an estimated 792.000 vehicles for the year 2002.
In an effort to calculate the battery scrap supply and the lead demand for batteries as indicated in the Annex VII, Briefing Notes and Draft Questionnaires for the Desk Study and Technical Study, research was done at the National Statistic and Census Institute for data on the imports and exports of new and used lead batteries. There was information on the imports of new lead batteries for both vehicle and industrial purposes, but unfortunately there was almost nothing for the exporting of used batteries.
The reason why there are no very small registers of the exporting of used batteries is that, as indicated before, the exporters are not using the Basel Convention protocol with respect to the Notification of the Transfrontier Movement of Toxic Waste. The exporters are apparently not declaring the used batteries as such in order to pass the Customs Officials. On the other hand the Customs Officials who have received instructions from the Ministry of Health, the Competent Authority for the Basel Convention, has given instructions to the Customs Officials to not to allow the passage of used batteries without the Movement Tracking Forms duly approved and the verifying of the container declaration to follow through with this requirement.