Exide Technologies Closing Two Facilities in Pennsylvania

Recycling Today

Company will keep its battery recycling plant in Pennsylvania opened.

Exide Technologies announced operational changes at two of its three lead-acid battery facilities in Reading, Pa.

The company will close its formation and distribution center operations in a phased approach starting June 7, 2010. The completion of the closing depends on a number of factors, including site maintenance, schedules and order fulfillment, clean-up and closure procedures.  Exide Reading’s formation and distribution capacity will be absorbed by other Exide locations.

The Exide Reading battery recycling operation will not be affected.

“More specifically, the decision is a result of the slowdown in the economy, the related impact on original equipment and aftermarket lead-acid batteries markets, and the necessity for Exide to rebalance and optimize its production and distribution footprint,” says Bruce Cole, president of the Transportation Americas operating division of Exide.

Exide Technologies operates a total of six battery manufacturing assembly facilities in the United States.

Kraus-Anderson Building $117M Florida Battery Recycling Plant

Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal

Kraus-Anderson Construction Co. has begun work on a $117 million battery recycling plant in Florida for Gopher Resource Corp., the company said Thursday.

The 309,733-square-foot lead battery recycling plant in Tampa will be operated by EnviroFocus Technologies, a Gopher Resource subsidiary, and is expected to create 120 jobs, Minneapolis-based Kraus-Anderson said in a news release.

Kraus-Anderson said the facility, one of only 13 of its kind nationwide, is expected to be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified upon its completion in 2012.

About 50,000 lead batteries per day will be recycled at the plant, with most of the high-quality lead reclaimed and refined for new automotive and industrial batteries.

Kraus-Anderson has built three LEED Gold-certified buildings in St. Paul, Bloomington and Lino Lakes, plus 27 other LEED projects elsewhere in the nation.

Estonians will Build a Car Battery Recycling Plant in Slantsy in Russia

The Baltic Course

The owner of Estonian security services company Pristis Indrek Sepp and his partners are establishing a plant for processing used car batteries in Slantsy, which will be the first such plant in North West Russia

Sepp stated that in coming days, a state-initiated expert investigation will be launched on the plant Ecorusmetal. The project is among the most favoured ones in the Leningrad oblast in Russia alongside recycling of tyres and bodies of vehicles, said the plant’s project manager and shareholder Aare Männa.

The battery recycling plant cost nearly 250 million kroons ($21.5M). Ecorusmetal will start producing lead, plastic and acid from the batteries and Estonian entrepreneurs would like to launch operations in the plant in a few months. Talks to include extra investors from Belgium and Russia are under way, which is why the exact date for plant opening isn’t set. Männa said that they want to include Novye Tehnologii, the largest car battery collecting firm in St Petersburg among investors.

50,000 tonnes of used car batteries will be needed to produce nearly 28 tonnes of lead a year which will be exported or sold to Russian car battery producers. The plant will provide jobs for 100 people.