You're reading: Battery recycling starts as environmental fears rise

They power small appliances, toys, mobile phones, computers and are an essential part of everyday life. Yet when portable batteries run out, environmentalists say Ukrainians discard 10 to 12 tons of portable batteries a year because of severely limited recycling options. People either horde the potentially hazardous material at home or throw them out with the regular trash.

And once they’re disposed of in the trash, environmentalists say, one AA battery could pollute 400 liters of water or contaminate 20 square meters of soil with highly toxic metals.

However, a realistic solution to the problem came unexpectedly in late 2012.

That’s when Ukrecoresursy, a government agency set up by the Cabinet of Ministers, launched a project to place 100 used battery collection containers and transport them to a Lviv battery recycling plant run by Argentum, a government-owned company established in 1991.

Up until now a handful of environmental non-profit groups have run battery recycling campaigns but their scope and reach have been limited.

The state-run project will include about 45 major cities with populations of more than 100,000, which will have at least one battery collection container. Some 10 biggest Ukrainian cities including Donetsk, Mariupol, Dnipropetrovsk, Kryvyi Rih, Lviv, Zaporizhya, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Odesa will receive three containers, while Kyiv will get five.

Olga Drobysheva, head of marketing at Ukrecoresursy, cautiously believes battery recycling can reach a nationwide scale.

“It’s good that now we’re working with Argentum, but we face some problems. Argentum representatives are very slow in making decisions and we’re still waiting for some answers because all the agreements have to be approved on both sides,” said Drobysheva.

Ukrecoresursy has already agreed to buy five-kilogram containers from Argentum made from organic glass at Hr 480 per unit.

“We (Ukrecoresursy) plan to collect about 9. 5 tons (of batteries) this year if everything goes well with Argentum. Last year Argentum gathered only 1. 5 tons,” added Drobysheva.

In comparison, the European Union recycled 34,710 tons of different batteries in 2011, according to the European Battery Recycling Association.

The government plan appears easy.

A courier places the batteries from the container into special packets. Then, several logistic service companies are supposed to transport them to Lviv. Next Argentum will retrieve the batteries at the storehouse for processing.

“But it’s merely a plan – now we’re working out the key points of cooperation with logistics companies and those shopping malls and filling stations that want to set up a battery container. The positive moment is that many companies are ready to support this initiative,” said Drobysheva.

Taras Kohut, head of Argentum’s innovation center agreed that logistics is the key issue in the entire recycling process.

“Now we need to arrange for transportation … but the logistics structure remains poor. When we’ll have stable bulk deliveries the process accelerates,” Kohut told the Kyiv Post.

Given that state companies are cooperating, Kohut believes the program will be up and running by the end of 2013. But as Argentum scales up on battery processing, some environmental groups are concerned with having the plant located in Lviv’s city center.

“If we have enough batteries to recycle (because we collected about 1.5 tons in 2012) we’ll divide our plant into several departments and then move to the suburbs. We’re supposed to recycle about 15 tons in the coming years and start providing services in the regions,” Kohut said.

Once the batteries are divided into categories, they’re grounded and separated during recycling. Although the plant’s recycling efficiency is very high, it needs to collect at least 1 ton of batteries to process them.

Used battery drop-off spots:

SOS Kyiv operative rescue service: 26 A Zhylianskaya St. In case of emergency call the 24-hour hotline (044) 289-70-13.

Activist Dmytro Gramodanov’s office:  46 Kikvidze St.  (095) 885-36-73

EcoBuffet cafes chain: 69 Volodymyrska St., 23 Moscovskiy Prospekt, 28 Vasylkivska St.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]