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U.S. lead acid baterries recycling has been outsourced. " As the United States tightened regulations on lead processing to protect Americans over the past thre

U.S. lead acid baterries recycling has been outsourced. " As the United States tightened regulations on lead processing to protect Americans over the past three decades, finding domestic lead became a challenge. So the auto industry looked overseas to supplement its supply. In doing so, car and battery manufacturers pushed the health consequences of lead recycling onto countries where enforcement is lax, testing is rare and workers are desperate for jobs. " https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/world/americas/car-batteries-lead-mexico.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/world/americas/car-batter... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/lead-poisoning-car-battery.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/...

t_mahmood 3mo ago
Yeah, too many lead batteries here, and there are a lot of battery recycle factories. It's been a health and environment concern for a while. And these batteries allowed to put motors on rickshaw, we call them "Tesla", And they are also another hazard, and menace for the price of faster transportation.
dv_dt 3mo ago
Don't get on such a high horse about US regulatory effectiveness. This is recently (2010) in California even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination Still, the overall benefit might be seen as positive for lithium from shifting widespread air pollution from combustion engines to more localized pollution. Though obviously the world needs to work on better processes for the local pollutants.
- dtech 3mo ago
  The "advantage" is that in contrast to heavy metals like lead lithium is a lot less toxic as far as we know. Not 0, but not in the same league.
  - Danox 3mo ago
    Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources, and if you don’t recognize upfront that, be it the military, companies or government, you have to be prepared to clean up your mess, in short, factor in cleanup and the cost of using rare earths or any other item you can dig up on land or pump from the sea or land, but worldwide, mankind is still not quite there in terms of recognizing all of the ramifications up front, short-term thinking is the curse of mankind. One example I can give of that is the fact that Alaska is home for the largest salmon fishery in the world, a fishery that is more valuable as a food resource than any gold you can extract from the headwaters of Lake Iliamna.
    - iso1631 3mo ago
      > Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic Carrots?
      - ufocia 3mo ago
        Poison hemlock is a carrot. Socrates and I would consider it toxic.
      - lostlogin 3mo ago
        Everything has a fatal dose. But I’m not sure the LF50 for carrots has been established yes.
    - dv_dt 3mo ago
      but here again, shifting from fossil fuels usage lifecycle - which is literally extract to refine and burn is a much more polluting lifecycle than a 20 year extract, use, recycle lifecycle for lithium or solar or any renewable approach. And its an improvement in both intensity and sheer tonnage of material extracted.
    - cogman10 3mo ago
      > Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources Not really true. There are plenty of non-toxic elements in the ground. The actual issue with mining is that the elements we are after are often surrounded by the likes of arsenic. Gold is a great example of this as veins of it are often right along and in arsenic. That said, I do agree about being conscious of what sort of undesirables get leached out from the stuff we pull from the ground. For example, I recently learned that the reason we have to be worried about mercury in ocean fish is because mercury is a major part of the pollutants spewed from coal plants.
qsera 3mo ago
>countries where enforcement is lax As an Indian this is exactly one of the reasons why I am afraid of EV boom. All of that bad stuff, which we are mostly unfamiliar with (in terms of how to handle it properly, because battery tech is always changing) is going to dumped in places like India. And would silently sustain the bad effects for many decades or even more, until it (the bad stuff) somehow reaches some developed country (probably never).
- worldsayshi 3mo ago
  > places like India I had the impression that India is quickly turning rich enough to say no to things like this.
  - anal_reactor 3mo ago
    Never underestimate the poverty of India. India is huge and while in some places there are bubbles of wealth, it's still a third-world country.
  - orwin 3mo ago
    India is a lot like Russia in that its people and standards of living are very different from place to place. China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India, especially once you go in more remote areas. (this is not a diss on India, i think that make the country much more interesting)
    - lostlogin 3mo ago
      > China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India If rumour is to be believed, this isn’t a coincidence and had been done by the regime.
      - willy_k 3mo ago
        Yes but this sentiment has held true since before the CCP.

t_mahmood 3mo ago

Yeah, too many lead batteries here, and there are a lot of battery recycle factories. It's been a health and environment concern for a while. And these batteries allowed to put motors on rickshaw, we call them "Tesla", And they are also another hazard, and menace for the price of faster transportation.

dv_dt 3mo ago

Don't get on such a high horse about US regulatory effectiveness. This is recently (2010) in California even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination Still, the overall benefit might be seen as positive for lithium from shifting widespread air pollution from combustion engines to more localized pollution. Though obviously the world needs to work on better processes for the local pollutants.

dtech 3mo ago
The "advantage" is that in contrast to heavy metals like lead lithium is a lot less toxic as far as we know. Not 0, but not in the same league.
- Danox 3mo ago
  Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources, and if you don’t recognize upfront that, be it the military, companies or government, you have to be prepared to clean up your mess, in short, factor in cleanup and the cost of using rare earths or any other item you can dig up on land or pump from the sea or land, but worldwide, mankind is still not quite there in terms of recognizing all of the ramifications up front, short-term thinking is the curse of mankind. One example I can give of that is the fact that Alaska is home for the largest salmon fishery in the world, a fishery that is more valuable as a food resource than any gold you can extract from the headwaters of Lake Iliamna.
  - iso1631 3mo ago
    > Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic Carrots?
    - ufocia 3mo ago
      Poison hemlock is a carrot. Socrates and I would consider it toxic.
    - lostlogin 3mo ago
      Everything has a fatal dose. But I’m not sure the LF50 for carrots has been established yes.
  - dv_dt 3mo ago
    but here again, shifting from fossil fuels usage lifecycle - which is literally extract to refine and burn is a much more polluting lifecycle than a 20 year extract, use, recycle lifecycle for lithium or solar or any renewable approach. And its an improvement in both intensity and sheer tonnage of material extracted.
  - cogman10 3mo ago
    > Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources Not really true. There are plenty of non-toxic elements in the ground. The actual issue with mining is that the elements we are after are often surrounded by the likes of arsenic. Gold is a great example of this as veins of it are often right along and in arsenic. That said, I do agree about being conscious of what sort of undesirables get leached out from the stuff we pull from the ground. For example, I recently learned that the reason we have to be worried about mercury in ocean fish is because mercury is a major part of the pollutants spewed from coal plants.

qsera 3mo ago

>countries where enforcement is lax As an Indian this is exactly one of the reasons why I am afraid of EV boom. All of that bad stuff, which we are mostly unfamiliar with (in terms of how to handle it properly, because battery tech is always changing) is going to dumped in places like India. And would silently sustain the bad effects for many decades or even more, until it (the bad stuff) somehow reaches some developed country (probably never).

worldsayshi 3mo ago
> places like India I had the impression that India is quickly turning rich enough to say no to things like this.
- anal_reactor 3mo ago
  Never underestimate the poverty of India. India is huge and while in some places there are bubbles of wealth, it's still a third-world country.
- orwin 3mo ago
  India is a lot like Russia in that its people and standards of living are very different from place to place. China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India, especially once you go in more remote areas. (this is not a diss on India, i think that make the country much more interesting)
  - lostlogin 3mo ago
    > China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India If rumour is to be believed, this isn’t a coincidence and had been done by the regime.
    - willy_k 3mo ago
      Yes but this sentiment has held true since before the CCP.