Project Report for
El Salvador
ANNEXES
APRIL 2002
Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
ANNEX 1.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ELEMENT LEAD AND
ITS APPLICATIONS

Characteristics of Lead
Lead is a relatively abundant natural element
found on earth. It was one of the earliest metals
extracted by man, starting from Galena (Lead
Sulfide), Cerussite (Lead carbonate) and
Anglesite (Lead sulfate).
Lead is a metal with a dull gray appearance,
a very brilliant silver color when cut, but it is
quickly oxidized to become a dull gray. It melts
at 327°Celcius and generates a highly toxic
vapor when heated. In nature it is abundant in
the mineral galena as lead sulfide. It is very
ductile and malleable.
The most important lead oxidizes formed
are: the monoxide (PbO), called litharge that is
Yellow (obtained by heating lead in air), this
material is usually contaminated during mining
and its color is only yellowish. The lead dioxide
(PbO2) is a brown powder; it is an active oxidizer
and is used as a positive plate in lead
accumulators.
Today lead is used in many industries
manufacturing a wide range of different
products. In Chart A.1 the main industries that
use lead in their production processes are
shown.
Inorganic lead has numerous applications
and is used by many industries and processes,
but the exact extent of its use in Latin America is
unknown. However, the most important
applications are the in the battery manufacturing
industry, metallurgy, paint pigments, traditional
pottery, telecommunication cables and chemical
products. A considerable proportion of the lead
used is from secondary sources.
It is important to mention that due to the
large number of industries that use lead in their
processes,
the
environmental
regulatory
authorities in each country have imposed a
series of work place standards for permissible
levels of lead in air.
Type of Industry
1
Metallurgical
2
Battery Manufacturers
3
Plastics
4
Printing
5
Anticorrosive paints
6
Automotive radiator repairers
7
TEL
8
Gasoline stations
9
Munitions factories
Chart A.1. The main industries that use the lead in the
manufacture of their products.
Source: http://www.saludhoy.com/htm/saludtr/articulo/plomo.htm l
The most important market for lead is the
automotive SLI (starting, lights, ignition) battery.
Other significant markets are the motive power
batteries for electric vehicles and the UPS
(uninterrupted power supply) batteries used in
telecommunications and computer based
sectors. Other noteworthy and growing markets
include the coatings industries that produce a
special lead impregnated glass for televisions
and computer monitors to shield against the
harmful effects of x-rays.
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
ANNEX B.
FORMS OF LEAD EXPOSURE
Lead intoxication has always been one of
the most common occupational illnesses.
There are three forms of lead exposure:
occupational,
para-occupational
and
environmental. The next table explains how
individuals are exposed to lead:
Occupational
Common among those who work in lead mining, metal
smelting and refining and other activities where lead is
used (automotive batteries, telecommunication cables,
maintenance, etc.); as well as in small scale activities
such as radiator repair shops and certain glass
production.
Para-occupational
Para-occupational exposure occurs when lead workers
do not wash after work and wear the same clothes at
work and at home thereby taking lead dust into their
house and exposing the family to lead intoxication,
especially small children.
Environmental
Feasible in the case of people who live near lead
smelters or refineries, lead mines or waste dumps, or
industries that use lead, for example a battery
manufacturing plant, radiator repair shops or traditional
craft shops specializing in lead glazes.
Source: www.laneta.apc.org/emis/carpeta/plomo-cilas2.htm
Occupational
lead
exposure
and
contamination is said to be one of the worst
chemical pollutants of work places and therefore
poses a serious risk to workers’ health.
Those working in the lead recovery sectors
and the secondary smelters are exposed to lead
and possibly other polluting metals. The
manufacturers of storage batteries are always
subjected to lead exposure.
Any grinding activities, agglomeration and
metal recovery involving lead produces high
concentrations of lead dust and lead vapors at
high temperatures.
The ingestion of lead contaminated foods
and water is the main source of population
exposure, followed by the inhalation of lead
dusts (such as the lead particulates associated
with leaded gasoline) and finally absorption via
the skin for certain organic lead compounds.
The main pathways for lead absorption in
humans are inhalation and ingestion. Almost
40% of lead vapors pass through respirator
filters. The absorption of lead dusts depends on
the particle size, i.e. smaller than 5 microns, the
solubility of the particles and the breathing
volume/minute. In essence, the greater the work
load the greater the absorption.
Environmental exposure is essentially due to
contamination of the soil and the atmosphere
cause by the emissions from lead smelters.
It is considered that a population exposed to
lead has a greater probability of developing
illnesses or other abnormal conditions.
Accordingly, the populations at high risk are
those exposed to dangerous levels of lead
concentrations or where the risk of exposure is
greater than for the majority of the population. In
this category the following populations can be
identified:
 Workers in lead industries
 People living close to mining or industrial
sources
 Residents living close to roads or highways
with high vehicular traffic.
 Person from regions where there is high
atmosphere lead pollution.
 Families of lead industry workers with poor
personal hygiene.
 Pregnant women and children younger
than 5 years.
 People with blood disorders such as and
mainly anemia.
 People with neurological diseases.
 People with nutritional deficiencies, mainly
iron, calcium and certain proteins.
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
ANNEXED C
ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE HIGH, MEDIUM OR LOW EXPOSURE TO LEAD
High exposure
Activities with high risk
Makers of accumulators
Makers of Batteries (accumulators)
Makers of lead paste
Workers of iron and lead
Metal Grinder that use lead
Makers of lead counterweights
Makers and Manufacturing small lead counterbalances
Makers of lead floors
Makers of lead protection equipment
Makers of lead pipes
Casters of lead pipes
Lead miners
Lead recyclers
Welders using Lead solder
Workers of lead mills
Makers of TEL
Makers of TML
Medium exposure
Activities with medium risk
Users of lead based insecticides
Makers of paints
Makers of pigments
Glass makers
Glass polishers
Low exposure
Activities with low risk
Makers of varnishes
Printers
Type setters
Brass casters
Workers in gasoline stations that still sell fuel with lead additives
Workers in shop of repair of vehicles
Tinsmiths
Very limited exposure
Activities with a very low or no risk
Steel engravers
Cutlery makers
Diamond polishers
Brick makers
Workers in maintenance shops
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
ANNEXED D
EFFECTS OF LEAD ON HUMAN HEALTH

Absorption of lead into the body.
The spouses of lead workers can be
exposed to lead and the main pathways and
absorption into the body is inhalation (breathing)
of lead particles in the air from the place of the
work and gastrointestinal where lead dust has
contaminated the food, due fundamentally to the
bad personal habits and hygiene of the lead
worker, who may be found to eat and smoke in
the workplace, and not wash their hands or face
before eating.
There is concern for those populations that
live near to lead industries or a lead mine, or
who have members of the family that work in an
industry that uses lead. In these instances the
main pathways for lead intoxication are also
inhalation and digestive routes. This last
category is especially important because young
children ingest the lead particles that have been
deposited in the floor of the home from
contaminated work clothes when they are
crawling around the house and pick up objects
from the floor and put them in their mouths. Such
exposure is due entirely to the deficiencies in
personal hygiene and the control of emissions at
the industrial sources of lead. Lead can also be
ingested by means of the contaminated foods.
Types of lead intoxication
The two distinct intoxication types of exposure
are:
Chronic intoxication
It is the form of more frequent intoxication and it is due to
exposure to small quantities of lead, but over a long period
of time. The problems caused can be either temporary or
permanent. Some symptoms are not specific to lead
intoxication and can be similar to conditions caused by other
pollutants, such as: tiredness, irritability, stomachache,
appetite loss, metallic taste in the mouth, drowsiness and
abdominal pains.
Sharp intoxication
This is a rare occurrence and is due to the absorption of a
great quantity of lead in a short period. It can be observed
as the consequence of a massive ingestion of lead. The
symptoms of such intoxication are strong abdominal pains,
vomiting and even convulsions.
More frequent symptoms of lead exposure.
The symptoms of excessive exposure to
lead will depend on the levels of the metal in the
blood. At the present time the exposure to lead
is divided in three groups, which are shown in
the chart D.1
Little exposure
Tiredness
Irritable
Difficulty in concentrating
Disturbed sleep
Occasional and light abdominal pain
Pain in the muscles
Numbness of the hands and legs
Moderate exposure Drowsiness
Headache
Pain in the articulations
Tremor in the extremities
Nausea and vomit
Loss of weight
Decrease of the libido
Severe exposure
Severe abdominal pain of the colic type
Damage to the nervous system
Paralysis or lost of power in the muscles
Convulsions
Loss of appetite
Death
Chart D.2 Most frequent symptoms for lead exposure
Source: www.saludhoy.com/htm/saludtr/articulo/plomo.html
Human health and harmful lead concentrations.
It is recommended that lead in blood levels
are as low as possible, particularly among the
most vulnerable populations, such as young
children and pregnant women.
In United States of America the Center for
Disease Control (CDC) have established that the
lead levels in blood should not surpass the
10g/dl.
For lead workers CDC is recommending that
the levels do not exceed 30g/dl.
The US EPA (Environmental Protection
Agency) established a permissible limit value for
the concentration of lead in the air at 1.5 g /m3.
The EPA also considers that the threshold for
lead in blood for the general population should
be about 15g/dl.
In the case of workers, the blood lead levels,
established as permissible by OSHA in 1980,
are no greater than 40g /dl for male adults and
30g /dl for women of childbearing age.
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
The Association of Industrial Hygienists of
American at the American Conference of
Government Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) in the
United Sates of America recommended values
for environmental limits for inorganic lead at
0.05g /m3 and 0.1g /m3 for organic lead with a
limit of 30g /dl for lead in blood levels.
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) recommended that the
occupational and environmental exposure limits
should be 50g /m3 per day for 8 hours of work
and lead in blood levels of 40g /dl.
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
ANNEXED D
MEASURES TO REDUCE LEAD EXPOSURE
The fundamental principles are firstly to
prevent lead inhalation and secondly avoid its
ingestion. When it is not possible to avoid using
lead, the metallic dust should be avoided; work
areas should be damped down with copious
quantities of water to avoid dust dispersion in the
air. However, the most important measure to
take is the elimination or reduction of lead
exposure. In the workplace the following
measures should be adopted:
 The elimination of lead and if that is not
possible, then efforts should be made to find
a suitable non-toxic substitute.
 To installation of control measures that
reduce exposure through ventilation and
extraction of the dust particles to an
appropriate collector, and in addition the
isolation of the process.
 Use of appropriate personal protective
equipment, that is, the use of respiratory
equipment (masks that filter the air and
prevent the inhalation of leaded particulates)
that protects the employee from high and
persistent quantities of airborne lead.
 Practices that reduce exposure with changes
of work, i.e. rotation of work.
 Workers should eat a balanced diet rich in
calcium, vitamin C, bran and vitamin D, as
scientific studies have demonstrated that
such nutrients reduce lead absorption.
 Workers should have designated places to
eat that are isolated from the work process.
 The workers should have suitable
washrooms at the place of work to shower
and wash work clothes in order to prevent
contamination of the home.
 Information about the toxicity of lead should
be readily available to ensure that workers
avoid ingesting lead when eating and do not
smoke in the workplace.
 For the environmental exposure to the lead
that is given, is necessary that the
competent authorities of to veil in that the
companies that manage lead fulfill the laws,
regulations and norms strictly in this respect.
the results. These measures are categorized as
environmental and biological monitoring. The
biological monitoring has two types of indicator,
exposure and effects.
The lead in blood level is the exposure
indicator and is influenced by the background
levels of lead and any recent exposure.
Essentially the blood lead level reflects the
amount of lead absorbed during the preceding
few weeks. It is not a measure of the total body
burden.
Additionally, it is important to control lead
exposure, measure atmospheric concentrations
(in both the workplace and the local community)
and biological exposure levels (occupational and
general population), and then to communicate
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
I ANNEX AND
WHAT IT IS A LEAD ACID BATTERY, WHY
AND HOW TO RECYCLE THEM.
What a lead acid battery is1.
Lead-acid batteries either start or power
cars, trucks, buses, boats, trains, rapid masstransit systems, recreational vehicles and
electric wheelchairs all over the globe. The car
battery also provides a stable electrical supply to
a vehicle’s electrical system.
During power outages, lead-acid batteries
provide quiet, pollution-free emergency power
for critical operations such as air-traffic control
towers, hospitals, railroad crossings, military
installations, submarines, and weapons systems.
In these situations the telephones stay on and
this is because every major telephone company
in the world, including mobile telephone service
providers, uses lead-acid batteries as backup
power to the telecommunications systems.
Were it not for standby lead-acid batteries,
we probably would have power outages nearly
every day because the electric utilities would not
be able to handle rapid fluctuations in the
demand for electricity. This is when lead-acid
batteries come to the rescue, as enormous
arrays of batteries delivering large amounts of
electricity for short periods of time until additional
capacity is added to the grid.
Lead-acid batteries power electric fork trucks
used in warehouses, factories, mines, and ships.
They also power the shuttle vehicles in airports,
as well as wheelchairs, amusement park shuttles
and golf carts. On the road, lead-acid batteries
power electric law-enforcement vehicles, buses,
and very soon mail delivery vans.
alloy containing various elemental additives
that includes one or more of the following
and sometimes others not mentioned,
antimony, calcium, arsenic, copper, tin,
strontium, aluminum, selenium and more
recently bismuth and silver. These alloying
elements are used to change grid strength,
corrosion resistance, reduce over-potential
or maintenance, and internal resistance.
3. Porous synthetic plate separators are
increasingly made from rib-reinforced
polyethylene, but are also available in PVC
and fiberglass.
4. The plates are immersed in a liquid
electrolyte consisting of 35% sulfuric acid
and 65% water. It is the electrolyte that
facilitates the chemical reactions that enable
the storage and discharge of electrical
energy and permit the passage of electrons
that provide the current flow.
5. The positive and negative lead terminals
used to connect the battery to the car and
pass the current from the individual cells via
a series of connecting lugs and bridges.
Accumulator batteries are formed by connecting
the electrolytic cells in series and/or in parallel to
take advantage of the capacity of the battery to
store electric power for use during power surges
or complete failure.
Treatment processes for ULAB.
Some of the toxic components of the ULAB
present a risk to the environment and human
health. It is necessary therefore to adopt
procedures specifically designed to process
these waste streams.
To ensure safe handling of ULAB the
following procedures can be used:
Components of the lead acid battery.
Direct Process
The modern lead acid battery is manufactured
with:
1. A resilient plastic container that is usually
polyethylene, but increasingly is made from
alternative co-polymers or reinforced, but the
case material can also be metallic or a
synthetic rubber.
2. Positive and negative internal lead plates.
The positive electrode (cathode) typically
consists of pure lead dioxide supported on a
metallic grid, whereas the negative electrode
(anode) consists of a grid of metallic lead
Description
1
The ULAB are received from the collector
complete, but before passing to the smelter
they must be drained of sulfuric acid. This
process is usually carried out in cupola
furnaces, but rotary furnaces are also used.
Advantages
Any mechanical or manual breaking is
avoided, thereby eliminating the possibility
of the electrolyte being poured down the
municipal drains. The case and separators
are used as energy sources and the solid
residue is the only waste.
Disadvantages The organic components of the batteries
can produce smoke emissions high in
particulates. The high sulfur content in the
charge material will produce sulfur dioxide
gas and adversely affect any surrounding
vegetation.
Brian Wilson, ILMC, Trinidad 2001.
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Manejo Ambientalmente Adecuado de Baterías
Ácido-plomo Usadas en Centroamérica y el Caribe
Diagnóstico de El Salvador
Semi-Direct Process
Description
Before the metallurgical process, the plastic
case is separated from the battery’s internal
plates and separators. Normally this
process uses a Rotary furnace.
Advantages
It allows the total recycling of the
polypropylene, thereby avoiding the risks
associated with the combustion of the
plastic. The only waste is the solid furnace
residue.
Disadvantages This is not such a simple process as the
ULAB are subject to a preliminary process
to remove the plastic case material. The
high sulfur content of the battery paste will
produce sulfur dioxide and any furnace
emissions will adversely affect vegetation.
Indirect Process
Description
The batteries are subjected to a treatment
that permits the most complete separation
possible of leaded materials prior to the
metallurgical process. The two most
commonly used furnaces are the Cupola
and the Rotary.
Advantages
It improves the recovery of the contained
lead in the feedstock. Reduces undesirable
gaseous emissions.
Disadvantages Requires the installation of a battery
breaker to separate the components. The
separate components need to be properly
managed.
Recommendations for the safe handling of
ULAB.
ULAB contain lead and a corrosive acid and for
that reason they are considered a hazardous
waste. Therefore, while being stored prior to
recycling or return to the manufacturer/retailer
the following should be observed:
 The ULAB should be tested to determine if it
could be recharged and reused.
 If the ULAB is “spent” is should be placed in
a strong leak-proof container.
 The terminals should be left on the battery
and sent for recovery with the battery.
 The hazardous batteries should stay inside a
sealed container that is leak-proof or on a
waterproof asphalt surface with a spillage
control system. It should be remembered
that battery acid will dissolve concrete.
 The batteries should stay inside a building. If
keep outside, the battery storage area
should be covered with a roof to protect the
ULAB from the rain. It should also protect
them from freezing.

 ULAB destined for recycling should not be
stored for more than 6 months.
 The building used for the storage of ULAB
should have good ventilation with vents near
to the entrance and close to the floor. The
doors should have warning signs that prohibit
access to anyone with a naked flame (e.g.
cigarettes). All the metallic surfaces should be
protected with anticorrosive paint and any
tools that are liable to cause sparks must not
be place closer that one meter from then
UALB.
Technical information for the
environmentally sound handling of the ULAB
In the warehouse and raw materials preparation
areas there must be a series of sound
environmental practices that are viable and
considerably reduce the dust and particulate
emissions:
a. Storage in closed containers.
b. During transportation the materials should be
damped down and/or kept in closed vehicles.
c. The machinery and the equipment used in the
treatment of the materials (the breaking,
milling, and classification) should be isolated
and completed enclosed.
d. A system should be introduced or installed,
especially at the transfer or unloading points
for the materials, that collects any spillage or
dust and transfers the sweepings to the
process for treatment.
e. Materials handling should be carried out in
facilities with ventilation equipment and a
system to clean the work areas (point of
transfer, material discharges, front end
loaders, entrances to the storage areas, etc.)
As for the process residues and spillage,
processes should be developed to reduce
process losses and decrease the generation of
furnace residuals as much as possible ensuring
whenever possible that by-products are recycled
in the plant.
The biggest risk of contamination to the
floors will be the storage areas for the process
feedstock, and the location of the UALB storage.
This contamination can be avoided easily with
an appropriate floor sealant and good drainage
system for the battery acid.
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