Ethics of Exporting Used Batteries
Lead is a highly toxic metal, and lead in this case relates toexporting used batteries to Mexico. Elevated levels of lead in thehuman body have been associated with damage to many organs and bodytissues, including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, andreproductive and nervous systems. High lead exposure in youngchildren is particularly worrying. It can result in lowerintelligence and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reducedattention span, hyperactivity, and antisocial behavior. It is notsurprising then that exposure to lead has been highly regulated indeveloped nations. In the United States, the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) has mandated tough rules designed to limitlead pollution. One consequence of these rules has been to increasethe cost of recycling lead batteries. These rules, however, do notprohibit companies from exporting used batteries to other nationswhere standards are lower and enforcement is lax.
A study conducted by the reporters from the New York Times foundthat about 20 percent of used vehicle batteries and industrialbatteries in the United States are exported to Mexico, triplingthis form of export in just five years. The lead in these batteriesis then extracted and resold on commodities markets. It is abooming business. Lead scrap prices stood at $0.73 a pound in July2015, up from $0.05 a decade earlier. Recycling in Mexico is also adirty business. While Mexico does have some regulations forsmelting and recycling lead, the laws are weak by Americanstandards, allowing plants to release about 20 times as much astheir American equivalents. To make matters worse, enforcement islax due to the lack of funds for quality control. For example, agovernment study in Mexico found that 19 out of 20 recycling plantsdid not have proper authorization for importing dangerous waste,including lead batteries.
At some recycling plants in Mexico, used batteries aredismantled by people wielding hammers and their lead smelted infurnaces whose smokestacks vent into the open air. Point in case, asample of soil collected from a schoolyard next to one of therecycling plants showed a lead level of 2,000 parts per million,five times the limit for children’s play areas in the UnitedStates, as set by the EPA. The New York Times reporters documentedseveral cases of children living close to this plant who hadelevated levels of lead in their bodies. One four-month-old had24.8 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, almost two and ahalf times as much as the level typically associated with seriousmental retardation.
The value chain for used batteries and this form of lead exportsis also done by intermediaries in the United States who buy up oldbatteries and then ship them across the border to the cheapestprocessors, typically a Mexican company. Some large multinationalsare also in this business, however, although they mostly try toadhere to stricter standards and regulations. For example, onelarge U.S. battery company, Exide Technologies, has five recyclingplants in the United States and it does no recycling in Mexico.According to an Exide official, it was not in the company’s bestinterest to skirt regulations. Another large U.S. batterymanufacturer, Johnson Controls, does ship a significant number ofbatteries to Mexico, but it has its own recycling plants in Mexicoas well. Johnson Controls states that its Mexican facilities abideby the stricter U.S. regulations, rather than the Mexicanstandards. Its recycling operations in Mexico are also well belowcurrent U.S. standards for employee blood levels and substantiallybetter than average.
1.Which country’s regulations should apply to a company—thestricter regulations or the country’s regulations in whichoperations are taking place? What happens if all multinationalcorporations focus on countries with the least strictstandards?
2. With more than 200 countries in the world, is it realistic toexpect ethical guidelines to be established across all countries oreven within industries across countries? Is one person’s or onecompany’s ethics likely to be similar to other people’s orcompanies’ ethics?
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