Jeff Liebermann wrote
Ian Field wrote
Jeff Liebermann wrote
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.

Ok, so you would let them starve instead.

They haven't starved in India for almost half a century now.

At least the environment will be safe and someone else can
trash their back yard. Given the choice between the two options,
I don't suppose it would be of any interest to ask the street
urchins if they prefer to be poisoned or starved to death?

They haven't starved to death in India for almost half a century now.

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

Yeah, I saw the horror videos and news reports. Same
issue as before. Lacking any other means of support, if
you kill the unsafe scrap business, the workers starve.

They haven't starved in India for almost half a century now.

We fixed that problem in a different way.

I wish I had a solution, but I don't

The solution happened quite a long time ago now.

(and government aid is not a long term solution).

Yes, but the green revolution was.

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.

Has anyone bothered to ask them?

No one ever does, even in the first world.

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

Brussels methods are a bit excessive. They pick an area of interest,
build a crisis, mount a PR campaign, and before anyone has a chance to
do any research, imposes draconian regulations to solve the problem.

That's just plain wrong on the research.

Of course, that creates additional problems for Brussels to solve
at a later date. I have yet to see an environmental regulation
that does not involve some level of collateral damage.

Because that isn't even possible.

However, the consensus seems to be that this is the price of ecological
progress. I generally agree, but often wonder if there's a better way.

There is certainly a better way than letting some suits decide what needs to
be done.