In the latest report of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the whole of the United States produces 246 million tons of garbage each year (EPA, 2006). That is up by nearly 60 per cent of waste produced since the 1980s. With the current population of 305 million people, this means that each person in the United States is producing nearly a ton of waste each year. These numbers grow and grow exponentially until there is something done to decrease the amount of garbage we take out of our homes.
As citizens, it is only right that we do something to curb the burgeoning garbage problem until other multitudes of problems arise from it. Thus, recycling will not only be a solution to an alarming garbage problem, but it is also an easy way to help save energy and conserve resources.
For example, in our homes, schools and workplaces, electricity is a crucial source of energy to make some of our tools work to help us with our current digital lifestyle. From our cars, laptops, hearing aids, calculators and cellular phones, all these things require that portable electricity that flows from batteries. When there are power interruptions, batteries are used to rev up commuter trains, hospital facilities and military operations. However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (20 December 2007) reported that “Americans use nearly 3 billion dry-cell batteries every year to power radios, toys, cellular phones, watches, laptop computers, and portable power tools”.
The usefulness of batteries in our current lifestyle is undeniably clear. But what is critical is how we get rid of these batteries when they are no longer useful. These batteries contain harmful chemicals that, when improperly disposed of, could deleteriously affect our environment. These batteries can contain poisonous cadmium, lead, and sulfuric acid that can seep into our landfills and be released into the ocean where they can kill sea creatures. When sea creatures have an intake of these substances, humans and other animals that consume seafood are also at risk.
Millstone (1997) confirmed that the biggest use of lead worldwide is for the lead-acid battery that is used in most cars and vehicles. Lead is particularly suitable for batteries, because of its characteristics (conductivity, resistance to corrosion and the special reversible reaction between lead oxide and sulfuric acid). When lead-acid batteries are not disposed of properly, lead does not break down over time and, in some places, large amounts of it remain in the air, soil and water.
Lead poisoning can affect fetuses and children under age 7 because their nervous systems are still developing and because their body mass is so small that they ingest and absorb more lead per pound than adults. Even 10 micrograms (millionths of a gram) of lead per deciliter of blood—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) standard for lead poisoning—can kill a child’s brain cells and cause poor concentration, reduced short-term memory, slower reaction times, and learning disabilities (Millstone 1997, p. 15).
On the other hand, adults exposed to low levels of lead (which once were thought to be safe) may develop headaches, high blood pressure, irritability, tremors, and insomnia. Health effects increase with exposure to higher levels and include anaemia, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, and constipation. Long-term exposure can impair fertility and damage the kidneys. Workers exposed to lead may become sterile or suffer irreversible kidney disease, damage to their central nervous system, stillbirths, or miscarriages (Millstone 1997, p. 18).
On the other hand, sulfuric acid on lead-acid batteries can also be detrimental to our environment. As we all know, sulfuric acid can mix with groundwater and soil causing these to become acidic and harmful to plants and wildlife. Commonly known as “acid rain”, sulfuric acid triggers acid deposition that “adversely affected lakes and forests in the northeastern United States, Canada, and Europe”. Due to the “gradual leaching of soil nutrients from sustained acid deposition”, forests and wildlife are even affected with “potential risk depends on numerous factors, including rate of cation (positively charged ion) deposition, soil cation reserves, age of forest, weathering rates, species composition, and disturbance history” (Lippmann, 2002).
With the onset of concern towards the harmful components of batteries, the Universal Waste Rule, an amendment to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was initiated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1995 in order to reduce some of the “administrative and financial barriers to collection and recycling of batteries and other potentially hazardous household products”.
The intention of such a program is to make “recycling of lead batteries easier and more profitable to recycle would lead to more extensive recycling programs. The rule streamlined the regulatory process for businesses and excluded rechargeable batteries from hazardous waste handling requirements. However, individual states had the final determination over whether or not to adopt the amendment” (Ford-Martin, 2003).
In recycling lead-acid batteries, the process is very similar to the primary lead production process. The main differences are in material preparation before reduction, which affects plant size since there is no need for sintering. The recycling sequential steps normally are the separation of the plastic case (using hammers or saws), acid removal, separation of the plastic, metallic lead and paste separation, reduction, refining and casting. Acid, polypropylene and lead are recovered in the recycling process (Espinosa et al., 2004). The fact is that there are many organizations that can help people dispose of their batteries, like Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC). People can just call their hotline or find a recycling location convenient to them and the RBRC will take care of their waste batteries.
Although batteries are just one type of waste, we can do numerous other things in our homes by recycling things properly rather than putting them in a trash can. Separating our trash into biodegradable and non-biodegradable will be a great help to reduce our trash.
We can sell bottles, newspapers and metal trash to junk shops and we can actually have extra money for our trash. As the world’s resources are diminished, recycling is not only environment-friendly but can also produce primary raw materials that can be used for other things. To recycle and reuse waste to the maximum possible extent should not only be promoted in batteries but to other things as well. Reducing the quantity of unrecoverable waste and disposing of toxic wastes as safely as possible, can benefit people more in a proactive way.
Works Cited
Espinosa, Romano, Crocce, Denise, Moura, Bernardes Andrea and Tenorio, Jorge Alberto Soares. An overview on the current processes for the recycling of batteries, Journal of Power Sources, 135.1-2(2004): 311-319.
Ford-Martin, Paula Anne. Battery Recycling. Environmental Encyclopedia, vol 1 (3rd Ed.). Eds. Marci Bortman, Peter Brimblecombe, Mary Ann Cunningham, William P. Cunningham, and William Freedman. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2003.
Lippmann, Morton. Acid rain. In Breslow, Walter (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Health. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. 15-16.
Millstone, Erik. Lead and Public Health: The Dangers for Children. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis, Inc., 1997.
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Batteries, (2007). Web.
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Municipal Solid Waste in the United States 2006. Web.