Tall Tales

Bloated end-of-life batteries are like beached dead whales.

Neglected, both of them tend to burst in an ugly, smelly manner.Only, in case of a whale, a whole town has to bear with the stink of putrefying flesh and blood running  in the sewers.

                                  Also,plenty of entrails

My story begins with a malfunctioning UPS whose battery had oulived its life.

Like all UPS batteries this one was a maintenance free sealed lead acid type. It lasted for a reasonable period of time and when it stopped giving backup during power cuts, which were pretty common in our area, I figured it was time to install a new cell.

The UPS manual told me that swapping batteries is something that could be accomplished without messing around with circuits and was “user-safe”. I read the instructions and my first reaction was, “Two minute job”.

Who was I kidding? That damn cover didn’t want to open no matter how hard I tried to. I would have either cracked my fingernail or broken the catch on the cover but would not come close to uncovering the battery. Enough of DIY, time for the pros to step in.

The battery shop guy where I lugged this battery had a hell of a time opening the cover but he finally managed to pry open the thing without any serious damage. We discovered the reason for the jammed cover- a swollen battery sneering back at us like a well fed Russian mafia boss.

                      Long lost twins separated at the country fair     

It was also quite a struggle to pull the battery out, as slots in electronic devices are manufactured to not leave any free space and the battery, being swollen was stuck. The repair guy’s efforts reminded me of that scene in “Snatch” when the fat robber was bending himself out of shape trying to get out of the small car parked in front of the betting store. Watch that movie, it’s pretty hilarious.

The battery was pulled out,the new cell installed in place,connections tested and cover snapped shut. When I asked the guy where was the old lump of metal and lead headed he shrugged nonchalantly.

“Where else? The scrap yards are going to extract the lead and then truck them off to the municipal dump”

“Aren’t you supposed to take these batteries back to the manufacturer?What about the chemicals?”, I asked incredulously.

Another nonchalant shrug,”Too much of a hassle. No body cares.This sort of thing might happen in metros, but not here”.

Dirty facts

I didn’t get a lot of time to think about the matter, as I was preoccupied in hefting the nearly 10 kilo deadweight during the walk home. Once back I hit Google and did some research. Since batteries fell under the category of e-waste I did a battery specific as well as general category e-waste research and found that

• Depending on the type of battery, they might contain toxic chemicals like lead, mercury, cadmium and nickel. These are known carcinogens, neurotoxins and are responsible for heavy metal poisoning.
• According to a UNEP report released in February India produces 300000 tons of e-waste every year, and would produce around 1.2 million tons by 2020.
• Recycling is handled by around 80,000 untrained workers in the informal sector who make around $2 daily and are exposed to chemical vapours, acids and carcinogens without absolutely any protection
• Every year, India imports almost 50,000 tons of e-waste from the US. US is the largest producer of electronic waste at 5 million tons per year

Let’s focus back on batteries. Battery use is increasing everywhere, be it personal electronics, transportation in the form of electric cars and hybrids and electricity generation (think solar panels and wind turbines). All these batteries would one day reach their end of life and would need to be disposed. What would be civilization’s answer?

Technology and behavioral change- that’s probably going to save the earth from being converted into a gigantic landfill

Technology, the good guy in the wings

Technology is the easier beast to tackle. R&D into clean batteries, as well as ways to make present batteries more efficient have been going on globally for a number of years and the results are pretty encouraging. We now have

• Mercury, lead and cadmium free button cells and batteries 
• A bio battery with a casing  made from vegetable plastic and running on sugar solution
• Flexible, paper thin and bio degradable batteries using carbon nanotubes as electrodes.
• 9 square millimeter solar powered sensors that can run for a long long time upon periodic exposure to light.
• Printed batteries that weigh under a gram, are thinner than a millimeter,zero mercury content and has a voltage of 1.5V.
• Rechargeable Zinc air batteries using oxygen from air to generate electricity, storing thrice the power of lithium ion batteries and costing half as much.
• New rechargeable Li-ion batteries for electric cars and wind farms that can last for 10 years,potentially replacing currently used lead acid batteries
• Microbial fuel cells using African soil bacteria, mud, sand and graphite cloth to generate electricity sufficient to power LED lights
• A virus attracted to inorganic substances like metal oxides to create nano wires which are then used as highly conductive anodes and cathodes to create an environmentally friendly battery of any shape

                        The less than a millimeter thick,1.5 V battery

If you click through the links you will notice that most of these are prototypes, with only the first product out in the markets. But given some time, these and a lot of other clever ideas will be available on a shelf in your nearest hardware store or supermarket.

But change of habits? Tough cookie

What’s more difficult is achieving behavioral change in terms of lifestyle. That’s because it involves habits and habits are very tough to change, either at an individual or at a  societal level.

For instance , one critical habit is to adopt the 3Rs-Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. If we could kick this notion that a cell phone 3 months old is a piece of junk and then much later, which it really becomes outdated drop it off to a recycling facility we would all be doing ourselves a big favour.  This is sweet in theory but a lot tougher than it sounds.

Efforts by governments, NGOs and corporations have been made to encourage all these habits. The 1989 Basel Convention forbids the export of hazardous waste from rich to poor countries. Even though US,the largest producer of electronic waste has not ratified it, there is a broad agreement that the third world is no longer the West’s landfill.

In Europe and America the governments and corporates run extensive programs that ensure the safe disposal of e-waste.Companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, Nokia, Samsung and Tesla (electric cars) take back their products (and batteries) and recycle them according to norms. For example, this is how Tesla recycles its batteries.

Dump and Trash: the Indian scene

Understandably, in countries like India there is a lot of work to be done in this area, though steps are being taken to remedy the situation. The Ministry of Environment is going to introduce the Environment Protection Act by April end which,among other things, will make it mandatory for manufacturers of electronics to take back their products and safely recycle them. As with other laws, implementation here will be the key.

However, even before the act is introduced quite a number of companies have set up operations to recycle electronic trash. All total there are 12 e-waste recycling factories spread out over India and registered with the Central Pollution Control Board .They can process about 50,000 tons of trash annually.

Nokia has been running a “Take Back” campaign since January last year by encouraging customers to deposit their old phones which will be then recycled safely. Wipro charges around Rs. 200/-  to take care of its old products.Acer will recycle their products if the customer bears the freight charges. Dell goes a step further and gives a discount of Rs 1000/- to a customer who brings in any old system and takes back a new Dell machine.

The government of Delhi has also implemented a scheme to install e-waste bins at various places in the capital. The waste will be collected by authorised recyclers and safely recycled.

These are admirable initiatives but they are too little and seem too half hearted. For example, expecting the price sensitive Indian customer to give away their old stuff for free and on top of that bear the cost of freight, which might run into thousands of rupees is sheer naiveté. That is just not going to happen.

He would rather sell it off to the neighbourhood scrapyard by weight and earn some cash.

The solution? Provide incentives to the customer to stop patronizing the informal sector. Of course, the informal sector cannot be wished away. It needs to be streamlined by formalizing it and introducing best practices. That is a priority for NGOs and the government.

On an optimistic note

This is for the present. In the future there won’t be the concept of e-waste if the vision of bio degradability and/or  recyclability can be achieved for consumer electronics.  

Maybe then I would write a blog post comparing batteries to phoenixes, reborn in a new casing after the end of shelf life, powering an energy hungry world