Recovery of alkaline batteries (R4, R5)

Spent batteries and accumulators used in households and industry contain various metals and chemicals that can damage the environment if they are not treated properly. It is therefore important that they are not placed in household waste but are collected separately and treated professionally. At DESIGN Kft. the first step in processing is careful sorting, during which the different types of batteries and accumulators are separated. Alkaline and zinc-carbon batteries are then shredded so that the materials they contain can be separated. Using magnets, air flow and various filtering equipment we recover iron, zinc, paper, plastic and graphite powder. These materials can return to the economy as raw materials for the manufacture of new products. The material remaining after processing, which mainly contains manganese oxide, is safely disposed of. The technology makes it possible for more than half of the mass of alkaline and zinc-carbon batteries to become recyclable material. We have the capacity to process around 800 tonnes of dry batteries per year.

By recovering valuable materials we reduce not only the amount of waste but also the demand for newly extracted raw materials and for the mining associated with them.