JEDDAH, 6 July 2007 — The Middle East Battery Company (MEBCO) in Dammam has developed a simple but effective scheme that ensures that lead from batteries is re-used. It was triggered by a chance observation from Yousef Al-Dossary, president of Dammam Chamber of Commerce Car Committee and owner of ACDelco battery distributor Yousuf Ahmed Rashid Al-Dossary and Bros Co.
Now running successfully, it costs MEBCO nothing to operate, recycles used lead and prevents pollution of the water table and desert.
Al-Dossary explained that he noticed that old car batteries were being collected on an ad hoc basis by itinerant labor and taken into the desert where they were stripped of lead.
“The acid from the batteries drained out and into the water table where it was polluting ground water,” he told Arab News. The discarded plastic cases were left in the desert adding to the pollution problem.
“The people involved were simply trying to make a living,” he said, “but with little education, they had no idea what they were doing to the environment or water.”
He liaised with Mufeed Al-Dawood, warranty engineer for MEBCO, who rapidly set up the recycling logistics with RASASS, Saudi Arabia’s main lead smelter.
The logistics are simple as Al-Dawood explained. “It was very simple in practice. Together with RASSASS, we worked out a regular scheduled truck service to collect discarded batteries from the distributors.”
This enabled distributors to manage their inventory, knowing when old batteries were going to be disposed of rather than relying on random pickup times from scrap dealers. RASSAS also provided the dealers with cash payments for batteries on the day, so dealers were able to calculate how much cash-back they are getting in return. RASSASS removes the lead and dispose of the acid and plastic in their own facility in an environmentally responsible way and smelt the lead.
“It is a win-win situation for all those involved,” said John Grant, sales & marketing manager, MEBCO. “There hasn’t been any financial gain in launching this initiative with our partners, the price of lead is still the same.”
He added that manufacturing batteries involves using extremely hazardous materials. “It’s our responsibility as a company to see these materials be disposed of in the appropriate industry standard method.”
Lead-acid batteries are made from materials including lead, sulfuric acid, plastics and calcium paste and when manufactured in the correct manner, these ingredients generate electricity that powers applications such as ignitions, in-car entertainment systems, onboard computers and GPS systems and even electric seats and windows.
When they are changed by the end-user, the scheme ensures that instead of hazardous waste they become a resource.
“Ultimately, we would like to see this initiative rollout across the region as it benefits the environment and protects people from hazardous waste. We face difficulty in importing used and old batteries from other areas in the region to be recycled in Saudi, as shipping hazardous waste from one country to another is not always welcomed.”
The initiative is working well and we have seen great progress in the first few months, with an estimated 25,000 batteries recycled so far,” Grant added. “Everybody wins, the battery distributor gets paid for collecting the used batteries, RASSAS is assured of a regular supply of recycled lead at a competitive price and less and fewer batteries are dumped in the desert.
MEBCO has produced more than 10 million ACDelco batteries since it began production in 1997 as the Middle East’s first maintenance-free battery production facility.