Sustainability | Terrapure Environmental

Recover

Recovering valuable lead and plastics that create value from end-of-life batteries that would otherwise be lost to disposal or shipped offshore for recycling.

Reuse

Providing services that upgrade materials recovered from waste batteries and repurpose them for reuse in the creation of new batteries.

Reduce

Helping reduce the amount of waste that requires disposal and lost value from end-of-life batteries.

Sustainable Solutions for the Circular Economy

As a battery recycling solutions leader focused on Changing Waste for Good, sustainability is embedded in every aspect of our business. Our goal is to recover and create value for every component of every end-of-life battery we manage. This not only helps protect the natural environment by reducing or eliminating waste for disposal, it also conserves finite natural resources required to produce new products that will fuel the transition to a low-carbon future. We recover over 90% of the constituent components in the batteries we manage for recycling. Each year, we recycle about 12 million spent batteries and have the ability to recover 134,000 tonnes of lead and 15,000 tonnes of polypropylene pellets to be reused in the manufacturing of new batteries. This contributes to the circular economy for industries including automotive, industrial and energy storage solutions. We also recover 20 million litres of sulfuric acid, which is reused in many industries, reducing the need for virgin chemicals.

Lower GHG Emissions

Additionally, Terrapure’s recycling process for lead and plastic generates significantly less GHG emissions than that of conventional production. The Terrapure Toronto Facility produces 73 percent fewer emissions than what is generated to produce the same amount of lead using the conventional smelting and refining process, and 57 percent less than that to produce the same amount of virgin polypropylene plastic. The Terrapure Montreal Facility produces 63% fewer emissions for lead recycling and 66% for plastic recycling.

Importance of Lead Batteries in Society

The lead battery industry is fostering global sustainability by evolving to meet the world’s growing energy demands.

In transportation, lead batteries reduce greenhouse gas emissions in vehicles with start-stop engines and help cut fuel consumption in those vehicles by up to 10 percent. In the renewable energy sector, lead batteries store wind and solar power, to ensure a steady supply of electricity, regardless of nature’s fluctuations.

Circular Lifecycle of Lead Batteries

Terrapure provides recycling solutions that contribute to the circular economy of batteries and create value for customers throughout North America. Lead batteries are the most recycled consumer and industrial product in North America – about 99 percent of batteries are recovered and recycled, and the components can be reused infinitely. We work with battery manufacturers to collect used batteries, recycle them and recover the valuable components of lead, plastic and acid. We then return the recycled lead and plastic often to the same battery manufacturers, creating a perfect “closed-loop” for their products. In fact, over 80 percent of the lead used to make new batteries in North America comes from recycling.

This has many circular-economic benefits, including:

Ensuring the value of all the materials in a battery is recovered and those components are reused instead of disposed
Protecting the environment from potentially hazardous materials by ensuring batteries are managed safely and responsibly
Avoiding the need to mine additional lead, protecting a finite natural resource and reducing the environmental impact of mining
Minimizing the transportation required by recycling batteries and returning the lead to battery manufacturers located in the same geographic region, thus reducing the associated GHG emissions for the overall battery supply chain

Here you can see how the circular economy for lead batteries operates – from manufacturing of the battery to recycling the lead from spent batteries to be used in the manufacture of new batteries, making it a perfect closed loop.

To learn more about the sustainability and circular economy of lead batteries and their nearly 100 percent recycling rate, visit Essential Energy Everyday https://essentialenergyeveryday.com/benefits/sustainable/.

Protecting Our People and the Environment

Protecting the environment, as well as the health and safety of our people, contractors, customers and local communities, is integral to everything we do. In fact, safety and environmental stewardship are embedded in our culture as two of our core values. We continually reinvest capital to upgrade and enhance our operations, ensuring we meet and often exceed the highest environmental and health and safety regulatory standards in our industry.

Employees are provided with all required personal protective equipment (PPE), which includes coveralls, gloves, boots, hardhats and respirators. This ensures they are protected from all potential hazards in their jobs.

We have a number of controls in place to ensure maximum protection of the natural environment. Our facilities employ sophisticated air quality control systems to collect and clean the air before it is discharged, ensuring we’re in compliance with all government regulations.

Investing in Our Communities

We are committed to being an active, responsible, supportive member of the communities in which we operate. We work together with our people, our communities and not-for-profit organizations in those communities to identify areas of need that fit with our company values and community investment program focus to make a tangible impact through financial and volunteer support.

CHANGING WASTE FOR GOOD