"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 5 Aug 2012 19:33:19 +0100, "Ian Field"
wrote:

I doubt it. This is how it's done:
http://www.okinternational.org/lead-batteries/Recycling
It's not pretty and probably unsafe, but workable.

Problem is; some dodgy characters have found after employee health &
welfare
costs & environmental precaution, its just cheaper to export the old
batteries to a developing country with slums & street urchins to reclaim
the
metal for a days food.

Would you deny the slum dwellers and street urchins their miserable
income by blocking or taxing such exports? It can be done, but it
would create an "unemployment" problem at the bottom end.


It poisons and sometimes maims the kids that are shoveling molten lead in
their bare feet, and it pollutes large areas of ground & possibly
groundwater.

They also had a "nice little earner" decommissioning scrap warships - which
involved shoveling out literally tons of asbestos lagging.

Unless you think the slum dwellers should be euthanized because they're
poor, they'd probably be better off without this hazard dumped on their
doorstep.

Thick as they are, I doubt this is what the Brussells suits had in mind when
they passed the WEEE directive.