The economic value of recycled lead serves as the core support for the enterprise’s operations, with its key advantages lying in "stable demand and controllable costs". From the application perspective, the purity of recycled lead can reach 99.99% after refining, which fully meets the production requirements of lead-acid batteries—accounting for over 80% of global lead consumption, covering scenarios such as automotive starting, electric vehicles, and energy storage—ensuring stable market sales channels. From the cost perspective, recycled lead uses waste lead-acid batteries as raw materials, which have low procurement costs; in addition, some regions offer recycling subsidies. The energy consumption for smelting recycled lead is only 1/3 of that for primary lead (lead extracted from lead ore), and the comprehensive cost is 30%-40% lower than that of primary lead, resulting in significant profit margins. Meanwhile, it drives the development of supporting industries such as recycling and transportation, equipment manufacturing, and auxiliary material supply, creating employment opportunities and boosting local economic growth.
Lead is a non-renewable mineral resource. The world’s proven lead ore reserves are approximately 90 million tons, and at the current annual mining volume of 5 million tons, these reserves will only last for about 18 years. As a major lead-consuming country, China consumes approximately 6 million tons of lead annually, but its self-sufficiency rate in primary lead is less than 50%, making it highly dependent on imports. Recycled lead, however, can "reactivate" lead resources that have already been put into use: about 0.6 tons of lead can be recycled from 1 ton of waste lead-acid batteries, which is equivalent to replacing the mining of 0.8 tons of lead concentrate (with an average grade of about 75%). Taking Jiangxi Mingxin as an example, if it processes 100,000 tons of waste lead-acid batteries annually, it can recover 60,000 tons of lead, reducing the reliance on imported lead concentrate by 48,000 tons and directly alleviating the shortage of primary lead resources. In the long run, large-scale recycling can reduce the intensity of lead ore mining, extend the "service life" of global lead resources, and align with the development direction of recycled metals outlined in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Circular Economy.
If waste lead-acid batteries are randomly discarded or illegally disassembled, lead paste and sulfuric acid electrolyte will seep into the environment, polluting soil and groundwater. Specifically, 1 ton of illegally treated waste batteries can pollute approximately 1,000 square meters of soil, posing long-term harm to the human nervous system and hematopoietic system. As a formal enterprise holding the Permit for Hazardous Waste Operation, Jiangxi Mingxin adopts a full-process environmental protection technology chain—including "closed crushing, refining, exhaust gas treatment, and wastewater recycling"—to achieve 100% lead recovery. At the same time, it classifies and processes plastic casings (for recycling and granulation) and electrolyte (for discharge or reuse after neutralization to meet standards), completely blocking the spread of lead pollution. Furthermore, the pollutant emissions from recycled lead smelting are only 1/5 to 1/10 of those from primary lead smelting (primary lead produces approximately 80 kg of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and 0.5 kg of lead fumes per ton). This significantly reduces air and solid waste pollution, contributing to China’s "dual carbon" goals (carbon peaking and carbon neutrality) and the synergy of pollution reduction and carbon emission reduction.
