Sharing good practice advice in LMICs-The Benchmark Assessment Tool

For more than two decades the International Lead Association (ILA) has been providing technical expertise advising businesses, governments and communities around the world on the safe and environmentally sound recycling of used lead batteries. Often one of the barriers to improving lead battery recycling practices in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) is that Regulators and local facility inspectors do not have a good understanding of the practices that are necessary so that facilities are operating to ensure sound environmental management and the health and wellbeing of employees and surrounding communities. To help improve this situation ILA developed a simple to use tool called the “Benchmark Assessment Tool” that allows users to undertake a comprehensive and easy to use evaluation process that is consistent with the Basel Convention Technical Guidelines for the environmentally sound management of lead battery recycling.

The tool allows an assessment of practices at the various stages in the lead battery lifecycle including

• Used battery collection
• Storage
• Packaging
• Transportation
• Recycling

This has been successfully deployed in workshops in Senegal, Ghana, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Nepal, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and even as far afield as Fiji. 

Whilst it is not a substitute for a comprehensive regulatory audit, the tool allows for a rapid and high-level assessment of a site’s management processes and is particularly useful for application in regions where informal or basic lead battery recycling facilities are prevalent.