Why do communities account for a high proportion? The key is that the technical threshold of lead-acid battery recycling is low. Under the most primitive conditions, individual traders can disassemble the lead plate, pour out the acid directly, then set up a large pot to heat, put the lead plate into the pot to melt, and add a little iron powder. Because the lead is very heavy, it will sink to the bottom of the pot to get recycled lead.

  In reality, the recovery rate of formal channels is too low, and the pollution control of lead products failed in the 12th Five Year Plan. The contradiction is that since the waste lead-acid batteries are hazardous waste, they should be included in the management of dangerous goods from the front end and traced in all links of circulation. The reality is that lead-acid batteries are sold and circulated according to ordinary commodities in the front-end link, which means that anyone can buy them and can't trace the source.

  For lead-acid battery recycling enterprises at the end, they need to have hazardous waste management qualification, while there are only 34 enterprises that have obtained the comprehensive operation license of waste lead-acid batteries in China. There are only one or two qualified enterprises in each province, and some provinces and regions do not even have them. For example, there is no qualified lead-acid battery recycling treatment enterprise in Xinjiang. If Xinjiang wants to formally deal with waste lead-acid batteries, it must go through the formalities of trans provincial hazardous waste transfer, and also go through the transfer slip, which is very troublesome, costly and difficult.

  As a result, a large number of self-employed and foreign buyers without hazardous waste business licenses controlled the recycling channels of lead-acid batteries, and the "guerrillas" robbed the business of the "regular army". The vice president of the recycled metal branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association said that there are estimated to be hundreds of illegal recycled lead production sites, mainly in Henan, Jiangxi, Hebei, Shandong and other places. Tian Jianguo's two lead smelters were once part of this huge underground industrial chain.