WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED IN RECYCLING ?
One particular problem comes from portable batteries containing small amounts of mercury, which were sold some years ago and are now being returned to the various collection points. Although the mercury content was drastically reduced prior to 1992 and solely mercury-free portable batteries have been sold since 1994 (with the exception of button cells and batteries for special applications), there is still some mercury in some of the batteries, obviously old batteries originating from earlier production technologies. The battery industry is currently developing a sorting machine for separating the various battery systems from each other. The next step will be to also separate batteries containing mercury (including primary cells) from those without. In a couple of years, however, time will have eliminated this problem.
