Lead Scrap & Drained Batteries

Soft lead, battery plates and RSLAB under Basel consent

Lead splits into two commercially and legally different purchases. Soft clean lead — sheet, pipe, roofing, ballast and cable sheathing at 99.9%+ — is ordinary non-ferrous scrap: it moves under HS 7802.00, prices at a close discount to the LME lead cash settlement, and needs little more than an assay, a radiation certificate and inspection at loading. Recycled spent lead-acid batteries are not ordinary scrap. Whole or crushed waste lead-acid batteries are listed as hazardous waste under the Basel Convention, which means transboundary movement requires the prior informed consent procedure: notification by the exporting state, written consent from the importing state's competent authority and any transit states, a licensed and permitted smelter at destination, and a contract that cannot lawfully be executed until those consents are in hand. Battery plates and paste sit in the same regulated family. We treat that sequence as the gate on the trade — the notification goes first, the container moves afterwards, and any counterparty who suggests otherwise is not one we work with.

On specification, drained batteries are contracted acid-free with the electrolyte removed and neutralised at origin, packed to prevent leakage in transit, and free of the battery chemistries a lead smelter cannot process — lithium-ion above all, plus nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydride and gel or AGM units where the buyer's process excludes them. A single lithium cell in a breaker line is a fire risk, so the free-of clause is a safety term rather than a commercial one. Whole drained automotive batteries typically yield around 60% lead by weight across grid, plate and paste, which is the basis most smelters pay on; battery plates and separated paste are contracted on assayed lead content directly. Soft lead is straightforward by comparison — assay, form and the absence of antimony, tin and solder are what set the price. We source from battery collection systems, workshops, telecom and UPS replacement programmes, roofing contractors and demolition, arrange SGS or Intertek supervision, radiation scanning and the full Basel documentation set, and ship to licensed smelters only, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms.