Over 200,000 tons of used batteries leave Nigeria annually, killing local recycling businesses – Ugbor

TERSEER UGBOR, MD/CEO of REDIN Recycling Industries lead a recent study on used lead-acid batteries market (ULABs) in Nigeria and found that even though the sector is worth close to N100billion, unregulated informal operators are hurting the sector, the environment and even government revenue. In this interview with BusinessDay’s ISAAC ANYAOGU, he calls for action to halt over 200,000 tons of ULABs export from Nigeria, which is creating less value for the economy and killing operators.

What is the value of the used lead-acid battery in Nigeria?

The local economic value of used battery in Nigeria is determined by the value of lead on the international market. Very few countries in the world actually mine lead. It is being discouraged because of the hazardous nature of lead mining.

Batteries are the number one users of lead in the world. Now that the world is trying to graduate towards lithium batteries, the use of lead may go down. But because lead is still very much in demand on the international market and most companies that require lead for the production of batteries or other purposes get their lead from scrap lead, from used batteries, the value of lead all over the world keeps going up.

Locally, when you have a ton of lead-acid batteries you basically calculate the weight of that battery relative to the international cost of lead and you know how much you make.

From our recent study, we found that Nigeria generates at least 110,000 tonnes of used lead-acid batteries every year, this is a very conservative estimate. As a matter of fact, current estimates take it to over 250,000 according to data from the automotive sector and the renewable energy sector.

In Nigeria, we still rely a lot on generators and they also need batteries and these are lead-acid batteries. Every government building, banks and residential houses many have generators and they all need ULABs, if you factor all these in, you will see Nigeria needs a lot of batteries.

  A ton of used lead-acid batteries currently goes for about N400,000 so multiply that by over 250,000 tones, you will see the value of the industry is in billions of naira.

  It is a huge sector that needs to be formalised and calculated into Nigeria’s GDP. We need to know how many jobs the sector is creating, amount of wealth being distributed the collection, transportation and recycling of lead in Nigeria, the environmental hazards and dangers that sector is creating and what technologies government can put in place to encourage more recycling locally so that Nigeria can be a producer of new lead-acid batteries. So that as we recycle the old batteries, we manufacture new batteries so that wealth remains in-country as well as increased job creation.

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Your organisation and some government agencies recently visited Ibeto recycling plant, tell us what you saw?

Ibeto has made the necessary investments and we can proudly say Nigeria has an international standard battery recycling plant. The facility meets the benchmark assessment tool that is used to check environmentally sound recycling plants. Ibeto facilities can recycle between 50,000 – 100,000 tons of used battery annually. The company is also into battery manufacturing.

But Ibeto is running at less than 10 per cent capacity because companies whose only desire is to export ULABs from Nigeria and make quick money for themselves are outcompeting Ibeto and others for the local raw material for their own production.

The exported batteries go to countries that have the capacity to recycle ULABs such as China, UK, Netherlands, India. Over 200,000 tons of ULABs leave Nigeria annually and they are pricing it highly making it difficult for local companies to compete.

Some years ago, Nigeria had between 11 and 15 battery manufacturing plants in the country but they closed down when the government reduced import duties from 40% to 20 %. By doing this, batteries from China flooded the Nigerian market and most of these batteries are substandard.

Now let’s talk about the environmental aspect, what is really the challenge with ULABs in Nigeria?

ULABs as the name implies contains lead. Lead is a poisonous material if not properly disposed of when it gets to its end of life. This is why the United Nations has taken it as a priority to develop programmes and policies especially for developing countries to improve the management and recycling of used lead-acid batteries.

There are automotive batteries and batteries for renewable energy storage, they all contain lead which is very poisonous when it is exposed to the atmosphere or the soil. It can affect health and the environment.

ULABS is considered the second most toxic wastes after nuclear wastes. It is not something that countries play with at all and it is not something that Nigeria should play with at all. 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.

What is the current practice in Nigeria in terms of disposal?

If you have a used battery and you are going to buy a new battery, the best and most advisable way to dispose of it as an individual is to return the used battery to the retailer where you are buying your new battery from and the retailer will pay you a discount on the old battery. That is the most acceptable disposal way for individuals. This situation is ongoing

In other states where the awareness is not high on the need to return used batteries, people abandon them with battery chargers or on the roadside. When it is abandoned the scrap pickers will pick them up and deliver them to used battery collectors.

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Is there a problem with the way they are being collected presently?

Used batteries have a standardized way they should be collected, stored and transported even before recycling. The only positive part of it is that the batteries are being collected from the streets but the way they are being managed and transported doesn’t follow the right protocol and the way they are being recycled locally doesn’t follow any known environmental regulation or law or the international treaty, the Basel convention that Nigeria is a signatory to.

Where are the problems of ULABS most prevalent?

Lagos state is definitely number one. More cars are in Lagos than anywhere else so it generates the most amounts of used batteries in Nigeria. Even when you come to renewable energies and inverter use, Lagos has the highest number of installations for used batteries. So it is the first state that should be considered in terms of enforcement of the regulations.

What is needed to integrate the informal recyclers whose activities endanger the environment into standardised operations?

We need laws that can be enforced. Currently, no law forbids anyone from breaking and recycling used batteries in the open space, so the enforcement agencies are handicapped. If you find somebody that is breaking the batteries if you arrest him what law will you use to prosecute him?

Most developing countries have laws in place that make it illegal to do this.  The Basel Convention is a treaty, an international law, Nigeria subscribes to so even if we don’t have local laws yet, we can apply this convention to guide us on how ULABs can be managed locally. If the international treaty is not domesticated and used locally as regulation or law, then it is difficult to enforce it locally.

It doesn’t seem the government agency, the National Environmental Standards Regulatory Agency (NESRA), charged with this task has adequate regulation in place, does it?

Nigeria does not have any specific policy for used batteries. We have general policies for hazardous waste in Nigeria that says hazardous waste should not be disposed wrongly but there’s isn’t a specific policy that targets used batteries.

The recommended practice is that every waste stream, especially when they are hazardous should have specific policies targeted at managing that particular waste. In this case, used lead-acid batteries need to have its own policies that can specifically target that category of waste.

NESRA has motor vehicle regulations that actually cover every component of the vehicle including the batteries and how the process should be managed through the extended producer responsibility programme whereby companies who are either responsible for importing batteries or manufacturing them and those who are also involved in the recycling of these batteries have to take responsibility to for the environmental and health hazards that their businesses are creating.