NEW YORK-Nokia Corp. became a licensee of the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp. March 13, joining 200 other companies that pay the nonprofit organization to recycle nickel cadmium batteries, a mainstay of wireless communications devices. Products sold by participating electronics manufacturers carry the RBRC “Charge Up to Recycle!” seal.
On March 28, representatives of RBRC are scheduled to begin a 12-day “carrot and stick” trip to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan where many producers of NiCad batteries and battery packs sold in the United States are located.
“(The visit) is part educational; if you’re not in our recycling program, you have to have one of your own,” said William Kim Kelley, president of RBRC, which is headquartered in Atlanta. That’s the carrot part of the mission.
The stick came unsolicited from retailers. “A number of retailers that collect for us (and who don’t want us to reveal them) will only sell NiCads covered under recycling programs,” Kelley said. “This is very nice for us because the best way to `incentivize’ people is to do something through their customers.”
Additionally, the states of Florida, Minnesota and New Jersey require any company selling batteries to collect used batteries for recycling.
Today, there are 15,000 individual collection sites for spent nickel cadmium batteries in the United States. Collectors, whether governmental or commercial, participate for free because the price of recycling, a minuscule hidden surcharge, is built into the prices consumers pay for the products.
“In the end, the consumer pays, but by keeping it within the industry, we can keep the cost insignificant,” Kelley said. “[The recycling surcharge] is applied at the point of distribution for sale, at the end of the cycle, so there are no mark-ups on mark-ups. The price is so low that, in many cases, there is no difference in price to the consumer.”
Major retailers that have signed up include: Ace Hardware, Ameritech Corp., Batteries Plus, BellSouth Corp., Black & Decker, Car Phone Store, Circuit City, Incredible Universe, NHD Hardware, RadioShack and Wal-Mart. “Target Stores just came on board with a verbal commitment, and we are talking to others,” Kelley said.
These new and pending developments in handling spent nickel cadmium batteries demonstrate the growing momentum for recycling. The most significant event occurred last May when a law, promoted by the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association, relaxed federal Environmental Protection Agency reporting and permit requirements for those collecting spent NiCad batteries for recycling. The measure facilitated nationwide NiCad battery recycling by eliminating a Catch 22.
Since 1985, an EPA formula that is still in effect regarding cadmium content has required spent NiCad batteries to be recycled or disposed of in special landfills for hazardous waste. Any commercial enterprise that accepted returns of spent nickel cadmium batteries was required to participate in a strict hazardous waste tracking system. But in most states, individual consumers can simply toss the spent batteries in their household trash. Consequently, businesses selling NiCads simply refused to accept their return for disposal, and the batteries, whose cadmium is a toxic metal, have ended up in municipal landfills.
“In 1996, after the president signed the bill, the retail collection situation exploded,” Kelley said. “Over the past year, we have diverted 15 percent of the batteries that would have gone into the waste stream. The mix was different in 1995 than in 1996 because it contained more industrial batteries, but the percentage was the same. We expect in 1997 to go over 20 percent [of small consumer cells]. In 2002, we expect to be at 70 percent.”
The percentages also will be a proportion of a growing base, with the number of nickel cadmium batteries for consumer use sold each year in this country expected to reach 500 million by 2000.
The nationwide momentum for recycling NiCad batteries also will get a boost as individual states require individual consumers to recycle these spent cells. Connecticut already has imposed this requirement, and Florida is in the process of doing so, Kelley said.
Once collected for the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp., the used NiCad batteries are shipped to Ellwood, Pa., where International Metals Reclamation Co., a subsidiary of a Canadian mining company, has a large metals recycling facility. INMETCO already had an extensive reclamation operation for nickel.
“We developed a relationship with them, guaranteeing them a stream of feed stock; and, for that, they put in a state-of-the-art cadmium recovery facility,” Kelley said. “It’s a pre-nickel treatment; cadmium melts faster than nickel, so it is `volatilized’ as a gas, then reconfigured as a solid.”
The recovered nickel and cadmium are then reused as raw materials to make new products, including new nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries.
