With Few Commercial Recycling Centers, China Struggles to Handle Used Batteries

摘要

Each year China consumes more than 16 billion batteries, but analysts here said there are very few efforts to recycle them, leading to pollution as toxic substances leak from spent cells.rnLow levels of recycling also lead to a waste of resources, with the vital materials contained in used batteries going into the trash rather than being reused. Commercial recycling of used batteries is generally not profitable, experts said, but it is a livelihood for thousands of low-income workers around the country who salvage raw materials from batteries in unlicensed mini-recycling centers, often at risk to their own health.