The Australian Government established NBN Co Limited to design, build and operate a new high-speed NBN. As customers are transferred onto NBN Co’s new fibre network Telstra’s legacy copper network within the fibre footprint will be decommissioned.

The existing copper network is independently powered from the exchange and is capable of providing analogue phone services to households and businesses in the event of a power outage. Unlike the copper network, fibre does not carry electricity and will not support analog phones in a power outage.

The Government is consulting with stakeholders on appropriate ways of providing battery backup services for those who need them. 

Backup is provided through a high quality sealed lead acid battery that has an operational life of 3-5 years. The government has estimated that the provision of a backup facility to all 11 million fixed line voice subscribers in Australia would result in the disposal of 2-4 million batteries annually.

In its submission to the government ABRI has argued that the design of the battery backup service must include the establishment of a mandatory take-back and recycling program to reduce the environmental impact of the batteries at end of life.  The disposal of used lead acid batteries in landfill is clearly unacceptable because of the environmental risks involved. Disposal in landfill also means that valuable non-renewable resources, particularly lead, are not being rcovered for reuse.

The company believes the combined resources of HydroMet and PGM will provide a platform for the group to diversify its current operations and participate in the rapidly growing electronic waste (e-waste) sector, which has been given a boost by recently passed regulations on recycling TVs and computers.

The acquisition of PGM will position HydroMet as a leading provider of e-waste recycling services in Australia with the potential to expand into other hazardous waste recycling segments. It will offer synergistic opportunities for HydroMet and PGM to achieve improved downstream e-waste processing recovery in areas such as the treatment of lead bearing CRT glass and circuit boards containing precious metals, which will result in Hydromet becoming a niche market leader.

About HydroMet

HydroMet is an Australian owned industrial residue treatment and recycling company. The company is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

In 2008 HydroMet tripled their recycling capacity from 12,000 tonnes to 36,000 tonnes per annum of used lead acid batteries at its Unanderra battery recycling facility. HydroMet has capacity to recycle almost one-third of the estimated 120,000 tonnes of lead acid batteries that reach the end of their life in Australia each year.  For more information visit their website.

About PGM

PGM Refiners is an Australian owned company, specialising in electronic waste recycling and developing innovative resource recovery technologies. Their recently upgraded processing facility in Dandenong, Victoria breaks down e-waste, including lead bearing CRT glass, into its major components. The resultant products, value added where appropriate, are used by downstream processors and by manufacturers as feed material for creating new consumer products.

PGM has a number of collection and recycling arrangements across a wide network of local governments and corporate clients. The company’s revenue is predominately derived from service fees. For more information visit their website.

Completion of the sale is subject to the approval of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). Subject to these approvals, completion of the sale is expected to occur in early 2012.

Following the sale, Nyrstar and SimsMM will retain ARA’s secondary lead producing facility in Melbourne, which will continue to be operated as a 50/50 joint venture.

About Australian Refined Alloys

ARA is a secondary lead producing 50/50 joint venture between Nyrstar and SimsMM. ARA has two facilities, one of which is located in Alexandria (Sydney) and the other in Laverton North (Melbourne). Total lead production in 2010 was approximatley 37,900 tonnes (Sydney 20,700 tonnes and Melbourne 17,200 tonnes).

About Renewed Metal Technologies

Renewed Metal Technologies (RMT) is a privately held company that specialises in the recovery of non-renewable resources. RMT owns and operates a secondary lead producing facility in Wagga Wagga, NSW.

About Nyrstar

Nyrstar is an integrated mining and metals business, with market leading positions in zinc and lead, and growing positions in other base and precious metals. Nyrstar has mining, smelting and other operations located in Europe, Australia, China, Canada, the United States and Latin America and employs over 6,600 people. Nyrstar is incorporated in Belgium and has its corporate office in Switzerland.

About Sims Metal Management

SimsMM is the world’s largest listed metal recycler with approximately 260 facilities and 6,500 employees globally. Sims’ core businesses are metal recycling and recycling solutions. SimsMM generated approximately 85% of its revenue from operations in  North America, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, New Zealand and Asia in fiscal year 2011.  The company’s executive head office is located in New York.

• sealed lead acid batteries, which are used in a number of applications such as emergency lighting, security alarms, portable tools and consumer electronics 
• automotive batteries used for starting, lighting and ignition.

According to research undertaken in 2010 by the Australian Battery Recycling Initiative (ABRI), Australian households purchase more than 7.6 million or 86,000 tonnes of lead acid batteries each year, and dispose of more than 6.2 million of 92,000 tonnes of them. 

Planet Ark asked people how they disposed of their used lead acid batteries. The answers varied according to the battery type, for example 25% of home alarm batteries are placed in the household garbage bin, compared to 2% of car batteries.

When asked about their preferred system for recycling lead acid batteries, 43% suggested a council-provided community recycling bin that you take the battery to; 28% preferred drop off locations in shops or businesses, and 21% would like collection from home a few times a year.

The full report on the research can be downloaded here.

The service will be rolled out accross Australia commencing 2012, and will be free of charge to the public at designated collection points.

Infoactiv Group has extensive Australian and international experience in operating e-waste collection and recycling schemes for IT equipment, consumer electronics and mobile phones. They currently manage the mobile phone collection program for MobileMuster.

ANZRP will be seeking early approval fromthe Australian Government to become an Arrangement Administrator under the Product Stewardship Act and subordinate regulations. The Product Stewardship (Televisions and Computers) Regulations 2011 came into force on 8 November.

More information is available here.

More information is available from the conference organisers.

The next European forum will be held in Barcelona from 20-22 March 2012.

The EV Battery Forum also has an active discussion group on LinkedIn. To apply to join the group click on LinkedIn.

Topics to be covered at the forum will include the Product Stewardship Act, new regulations for TVs and computers, and the recovery of e-waste, batteries, mobile phones, tyres, fluorescent lights and organics.   

The forum will be held as part of the Australiasian Waste & Recycling Expo at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour.

Members with stands at the expo will include Century Yuasa Batteries in conjunction with Planet Ark, and Orbitas.

More information is available from the Waste & Recycling Expo website.

- manage their business risks

- avoid legal prosecution

- protect the health and safety of workers an the general public

- avoid environmental damage from spills or accidents

- protect their corporate reputation.

These requirements are summarised in a brochure published by ABRI, entitled Responsible recycling of used lead acid batteries. The brochure covers legal requirements for transport and storage, insurance, safe handling and packaging.

The brochure can be downloaded here.

The most recent study, by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), analysed the environmental impact of different end of life options for alkaline batteries. The study concluded that the environmental impacts of batteries over their life cycle are primarily from the production of raw materials, with production of manganese dioxide, zinc and steel having the highest impacts. The benefits of recycling can be optimised by recovering more than zinc for its metal value (i.e. replacing virgin material). The environmental impacts of the collection stage depend on whether consumers need to make a dedicated transport journey. The scenario with the lowest impact was the addition of batteries to an existing kerbside collection system. Municipal and retail drop-off systems were also modelled.

The earlier study, by Environmental Resources Management (ERM) in the UK, considered end of life options for all portable batteries. These included alkaline, zinc carbon, lithium, nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride, lead acid and other battery chemistries. Unlike the MIT research, it  consided the financial cost of different scenarios as well as their environmental impact.  The study concluded that increasing recycling is beneficial to the environment due to the recovery of metals and avoidance of virgin metal production. However, this is achieved at a significant cost compared to disposal in landfill or incineration. 

Download the studies here:

MIT (2011), Life cycle impacts of alkaline batteries with a focus on end-of-life

ERM (2006), Battery waste management life cycle assessment

The main use of NiMH batteries is in rechargeable AA and AAA batteries. A typical NiMH battery contains around 7% of rare earth elements including cerium (Ce), lantheum (La), neodynium (Nd) and praseodynium (Pr).

The United Nations Environment Program’s status report on recycling rates for metals (2011) estimated that these rare earth metals are currently recycled at rates of less than 1%.

Rare earth metals are critical to the manufacture of high technology products including wind turbines, electronic consumer goods, nanotechnologies and batteries.