Life Green Batteries Project

• Starting page
• presentation of the project
• why should I care
• batteries & accumulators
• current situation
  • batteries
  • accumulators
• legislation
• recycling programs in the EU
• outcomes of recycling project Life Green Batteries
• the life environment funding project

MANAGEMENT OF ACCUMULATORS

Country

Italy

Recycling system 

Organized formal recycling system COBAT

Legal status of the organization

COBAT is an association founded on the model of the public/private partnership: the public sector exercising the function of policy and control, the private sector entrusted with management.
It has been instituted by law (COBAT, The "Official Recycling Association for Spent Lead Batteries and Lead Waste" is a non profit-making organization instituted under law 475/1988; its charter was approved by a Decree of the Ministry for the Environment and Industry published 16th May 1990).
The board of directors includes representatives from the Ministry of Industry and Environment.
The Association currently includes: Recycling companies, Battery Manufacturers, Collection and scrap companies and Installers.
According to the law "anyone in possession of spent lead batteries or lead waste is required to hand these over to COBAT either directly or by delivering them to agencies appointed by the Association"A modification of this law has been performed during the last years because there was an accusation that this law is against the principles of free market.

Activities

COBAT collects spent lead batteries and transports them to its own recycling sites, where the sulphuric acid is neutralized and the lead metal recovered.
The main steps followed are:  
Collection : vehicles with a capacity between 3.5 and 16 tons,
Transportation : vehicles with capacity equal to or in excess of 28 tones
Battery processing :  6 treatment plants - the process is based on reduction at high temperatures of lead compounds, oxides and sulphates, using classic reducers such as coal or coke.
Main steps of processing:

• Fusion and refinement of lead
• Pulverization of accumulator tank and separation of polypropylene (granulation and sale)
• Treatment of acid
• Recovery / disposal of plastic mix

Financial data:
income - outcome

• Income from a surcharge applied to the price of new batteries by manufacturers and importers and paid directly to the Association, which can then be recovered from each successive purchaser in the chain of distribution and ultimately from the end user. The fee on each battery ensures that the activity of collecting and recycling can be carried on in any trading conditions, irrespective of movements in the price of lead on international markets. Each year, with a specific decree, the Departments of the Environment, Industry, Commerce and Crafts define the amount, on the basis of the total number of new batteries produced and sold, as well as lead quotations on the L.M.E.
• Income from the sale of spent batteries to recycling companies. The income of COBAT from the sale of spent batteries to recycling companies change every year depending on the price of lead in London Metal Exchange. Depending on this fluctuation the surcharge applied to the price of batteries change every year. The total income of the Recycling Association is around 0,12 €/kilo of spent batteries and the surcharge for starter batteries is approximately 0.8 €.

Dissemination activities

• institutional communication, aimed to publicize COBAT, its mission and the results obtained
• environmental education addressing schools and young people and directed to promote new generations’ awareness on ecological problems connected to industrial development
• tailored communication directed towards specific users’ categories with a higher risk of waste dispersion in the environment