Researches On Spent Battery Collection Pathway And Management System In China

With the development of economy, science and technology, batteries have become an indispensable product of industry and people’s lives. Correspondingly, the generation of spent batteries is also soaring. As the biggest manufacturer and consumer of batteries in the world, China is also generating the world’s largest quantities of spent batteries. According to the current policies on spent battery management in China, the priority of spent battery collection and recycling is focused upon spent rechargeable batteries and button cells, while it is not suggested to collect and recycle spent primary batteries meeting governmental requirements under the circumstance that no advanced recycling methods are available. In practice, the collection of spent batteries can be divided into two categories, lead-acid battery and portable batteries (mainly includes zinc manganese dry batteries, lithium batteries, lithium ion batteries and button cells). Spent lead-acid batteries are on the list of "Inventory of Hazardous Waste" and are collected and recycled in accordance with the management requirements of hazardous waste; the collection rate is high. There are no uniform collection channels for portable batteries and the collection and recycling rate is low, with most of the spent portable batteries are sent to landfills or incineration. When spent portable batteries are disposed of in the soil, they not only pose a threat to the environment and human health, but cause substantial waste of resources and energy.At present, developed economies, especially European countries have performed much research on environmental impacts, collection strategies and recycling methods of spent batteries. Most countries have formulated laws and regulations to promote the collection and recycling of spent household batteries. But the research on the necessity and feasibility of spent portable batteries collection and recycling in China is scarce. Specifically, the current situation of spent battery collection and recycling from the households (material flow of batteries at their end of life, the resident’s awareness and perceptions of spent batteries), the environmental impacts of batteries at their end of life, the environmental impact and optimization potentiality of the main approaches dealing with spent batteries, and suitable collection methods and management strategies of spent batteries in China, are not clear. With the sharp increase of spent batteries and their potential environmental and healthy impact, it is urgent to study and analyze those issues. The research on collection methods, utilization approaches and management strategies of spent batteries not only is vital for theory exploration of spent battery management, but provides value for practical spent battery collection and recycling in China.To solve the problems mentioned above, this research was conducted as follows: Firstly, a questionnaire survey was conducted in two cities in Shandong Province, China, to explore consumer behavior, awareness, perceptions, and willingness to pay (WTP) for spent battery collection and recycling. The results showed that the majority of the respondents used primary and lithium-ion batteries and most of the spent batteries were stored at home or thrown away as household waste. The key factor responsible for the failure of spent battery collection is lack of convenient collection sites. High awareness of toxicity of spent batteries and low awareness of battery management policies revealed a lack of proper information and education among citizens. The results also revealed that the government was ranked as the first in the responsibility for ensuring proper spent battery management. This underscored the crucial roles for the government in improving the collection and recycling of spent batteries. The respondents had a preference for using curbside recycling bins as the best potential collection approach. The WTP of the deposit would be 15.6% of the sale price when a deposit refund system for spent batteries collection is employed according to the investigation. In addition, the respondents were willing to pay 13.6% of the sale price to subsidize the initiatives of spent batteries collection and recycling. Educational level was the most significant factor that affected the WTP of the respondents in the study.Secondly, spent zinc manganese batteries were chosen to study the behavior and the environmental impacts of the spent batteries in landfill since they are the largest quantity of batteries in use. The concentration of main metal in the spent zinc manganese battery powder was measured. The soil column leaching experiments were carried out to study the migration behavior of these metals in the soil column and their effect on the soil and groundwater. Results showed that the concentration of mercury and lead in spent zinc manganese battery is still high. Soil column leaching experiments showed that lead and cadmium in soil and battery powder could pose a great threat to the groundwater. Increasing the amount of battery powder could significantly increase the release rate and cumulative release amount of lead and cadmium in ground water, which could pose a greater threat to the groundwater. After three years of simulated precipitation process, spent zinc manganese battery powder will not have great influence on the soil.Thirdly, we took spent zinc manganese batteries as an example to comprehensively analyze the advantages and disadvantages of approaches to recycle these batteries. Besides, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method was used to study the environmental impact of bioleaching method of managing with spent zinc manganese batteries. Results showed that the main environmental impact categories were human toxicity and marine ecotoxicity, which can mainly be attributed to direct metal emissions during the mechanical cutting and crushing process. At the small-scale pilot level, well-designed and closed battery cutting and crushing equipment is vital for reducing the overall environmental impact. It is proposed that further optimization of the bio-hydrometallurgical technique should involve large bacteria consortia, high pulp density, and reuse of solid residues from bioleaching. If metals recovery were taken into consideration, the environmental impact of spent Zn-Mn batteries bio-hydrometallurgical treatment could be improved significantly, which calls for a policy to collect and recycle spent Zn-Mn batteries.Fourthly, lead-acid batteries belong to and should be treated as hazardous solid waste in China. The thesis emphasized the management strategies of spent portable battery. Literature review and interview methods were deployed to analyze the current situation and experience of spent portable battery collection and recycling in Europe. Key factors contributing to the success of spent battery collection in Europe include Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)-based spent battery management policies, Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO)-based collection management system, multi-channel collection ways, sound recycling technologies, multi-channel information publicity approaches etc. The central problem is the management of informal recycling in current Chinese Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment management (WEEE). To help to solve the problem, two alternative management models were proposed. A shared responsibility model with deposit refund system (DRS) was proposed to eliminate the informal sectors. An integration of informal collection and formal recycling model was proposed to eliminate informal recycling. Both models could help to set informal recycling aside and facilitate the sound closed loop of WEEE management. Combined with the current situation and of spent battery management in China, spent battery management experience in developed countries, EPR-based spent battery management system could be established in China. With the application of DRS, EPR-based system could be effective to manage spent batteries in China. Other important issues include evenly geographical distributed collection sites, multi-channel information dissemination, and sound recycling technologies.The researches on current situation of spent battery management, environmental impact, recycling technologies, and management strategies of spent batteries in China were carried out in the thesis. Consumer behavior and perspectives concerning spent portable battery collection and recycling in China were investigated to provide data support for decision-making on spent battery collection. The behavior and the environmental impacts of the spent zinc manganese batteries in landfills were studied to provide support for comprehensive evaluation of spent battery collection and recycling, as well as policy making on spent battery collection. Advantages and disadvantages of approaches to recycle spent zinc manganese batteries were analyzed and the environmental impacts of bioleaching method of dealing with spent zinc manganese batteries was evaluated to provide advice for spent zinc manganese battery recycling and optimization of bioleaching method. Policy model and its operating mechanism suitable for spent battery management in China were put forward and analyzed to provide policy support for spent portable batteries and small WEEE management in China.