The Portable Rechargable Battery Association, mentioned in the article above, contacted us to take exception to two of the assertions above by Dan Squiller, CEO of PowerGenix.

In response to Squiller's claim that "for nickel-zinc, our recycling or remediation cost is one-tenth what it is for NiCd," George Kerchner, Executive Director of the PRBA responds that:

We are not aware of any entity that targets collection of used nickel zinc batteries for recycling. Thus, the quotation attributed to Mr. Squiller that recycling or remediation costs associated with those batteries is "one-tenth" what it is for ni-cds is groundless.

Regarding Squiller's suggestion that "30 million pounds of cadmium a year ends up in landfills from people throwing away their batteries and from the manufacturing processes associated with nickel-cadmium batteries," the PRBA responds:

That number makes no sense. Very few, if any, ni-cd batteries currently reach landfills. Even if there were not extensive not-for-profit nickel-cadmium battery recycling programs in North America and Europe—which there are—the fact that cadmium now sells for over $3 per pound, and has been as high in the last year as $5.99 per pound, has resulted in extensive private efforts to recover this material from used batteries and other accessible sources. The overwhelming percentage of any cadmium that today is reaching landfills is imbedded in used CRTS, old semiconductors, plastics or paints. Recovery of the metal from these products is far less practical than recovery from used batteries.

Dallas Kachan
Publisher, Acting Editor
Cleantech.com