Following the Pb: An Envirotechnical Approach to Lead-Acid Batteries in the United States

摘要

If recycling is a harbinger of a more sustainable society, then the lead-acid battery industry offers an apparent model of success. In the United States, more than 97 percent of lead-acid batteries have been recycled since the early 1990s. But this record of success is not new. The lead industry has been recovering lead from spent batteries on an industrial scale since the 1920s. This article takes a novel approach to explain the historical dynamics of the lead-acid battery industry: instead of narrating a linear commodity chain that begins with raw materials extracted from nature and ends with the disposal (or recycling) of a consumer product, this essay is organized around a systems-based approach that tracks the stocks and flows of lead through the built environment. How has the structure of the lead-acid battery industry changed over time? Where have the threats to human and environmental health emerged in the system? How has the system and its risks been affected by occupational health, environmental, and trade policies? Considering the environmental history of lead-acid batteries reveals a complex and volatile industry shaped by dramatic swings in recycling rates historically. Ironically, the recycling rate dropped sharply as new occupational health and environmental policies came into force in the 1980s. Recycling rates rose in the 1990s as the industry stabilized and consolidated. More recently, trade policies and tightening Environmental Protection Agency regulations have pushed lead-acid recycling activities abroad with consequences for human and environmental health that belie any straightforward claims about environmental sustainability.