News | November 14, 2022
November 15 is America Recycles Day, a day designated to raise awareness of recycling and promoting the purchase of recycled products. It’s also the perfect time to acknowledge the commitment of the lead battery recycling industry to safe and sustainable recycling that helps achieve a cleaner, greener future.
The lead battery in your car is almost certainly a recycled product. On average, a new lead battery contains 80% recycled material – obtained and processed by battery recyclers.
While lead car batteries are an application most of us are familiar with, it’s not’s the only place where lead batteries are used – and where recycling can really make a difference. A wide range of industries and applications depend on lead batteries, from renewable energy to communications networks. They provide 60% of the world’s rechargeable battery capacity. Read more here.
Our 99% recycling rate is impressive – and unmatched. Lead batteries are the most recycled consumer product in the U.S., keeping more than 130 million batteries out of landfills every year.
Lead batteries are designed to be remade, creating a continuous cycle of use and reuse. Because of the unique properties of lead, it can be reused over and over and over again. By recycling instead of mining new materials, we’re also helping reduce greenhouse gases.
Today’s lead battery recycling process is a modern, closed-loop responsible recycling infrastructure that keeps materials in the system instead of tossing them into landfills. Nearly all of the lead, plastic and electrolytes contained in a used battery are recovered and mainly recycled to produce domestic materials for new batteries and other products. Even better, the lead from lead batteries can be infinitely recycled with no loss of performance.
It’s a remarkably efficient circular economy, providing materials to domestic manufacturers for essential batteries needed for EVs, data centers, hospitals, renewable energy storage and more. In fact, 62% of the lead demand in the U.S. is met by domestic lead battery recyclers!
Millions of used batteries reach the end of their useful life each year. When they do, America’s lead battery recyclers are there to recover and process the spent batteries to produce the valuable resources required to manufacture the next generation of batteries that power our everyday lives. Join us in celebrating this remarkable sustainability story on America Recycles Day and every day!
