Current situation of scrap batteries in Turkey

Abstract

This article reports the current situation of waste batteries and policies in Turkey. Turkey is a developing country where the battery consumption per person is around three to four pieces annually. Although the rate of consumption in Europe is around 10, the required amount of battery is growing rapidly with increasing technological development. According to the statistics of the year 2002, 10 million pieces of GSM batteries are consumed, whereas 250 million pieces of other sort of batteries are used in Turkey annually. Consumption figures suggest that the market value of the consumed batteries approximates to US$ 200 million. Based upon the amount of the used battery and marketing values, it is estimated that 10,000 t of scrap batteries will accumulate per annum. Only 1.2% of scrap batteries in Turkey can be recollected through Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. At present, there is no recycling plant in Turkey to recycle scrap batteries. In this investigation, the variety of batteries used, the situation of scrap battery collection and its capacity and also the possibilities of recycling of scrap batteries in Turkey are put forward.