Scrap Your Dead Car Battery for Cash? CEJ Says 2,000 Illegal Smelters Are Poisoning SL

Every petrol, diesel, and hybrid car in Sri Lanka runs on a lead-acid battery, and when it finally dies most owners just sell it to a scrap collector for quick cash instead of taking it back to an authorised dealer. The Centre for Environmental Justice warned this October, during lead-poisoning awareness week, that over 2,000 informal lead-smelting operations are running across the country with little oversight, releasing an estimated 5,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid a year, plus lead, cadmium and arsenic residue, into soil and water near these yards. One side says this is just how recycling has always worked here: the scrap trade pays better than any formal take-back scheme, and a family needs that cash more than it needs to worry about a smelter three towns away. The other side says informal smelting is slow poisoning of groundwater and farmland, and the real fix is forcing importers and battery sellers to take old batteries back properly, instead of leaving "responsible disposal" to the buyer. Where did your last dead battery actually end up, and did the shop ever offer to take it back when you bought the new one? ඔබේ පරණ බැටරිය අන්තිමට කොහෙද ගියේ ද?