Call to ban used batteries exports

Leading local automotive battery manufacturer Chloride Zimbabwe has appealed to Government to draft measures that curb the smuggling of used automotive batteries and ban their exportation, for the benefit of the local battery manufacturing industry.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, Chloride Zimbabwe operations manager Mr Bryton Nyabereka said there was need for Government to save the local automotive battery manufacturing industry through banning exports of used automotive batteries which can be used to reproduce new batteries locally.

The appeal came amid revelations that there were bogus foreign syndicates operating countrywide duping citizens, especially in rural areas, of used car batteries, before smuggling them into neighbouring Mozambique and South Africa where they are shipped to destinations such as Europe and  China.

Mr Nyabereka said used automotive batteries contained lead metal, which is on demand by battery manufacturers world over.

"As battery manufacturers, we are lobbying the Government to ban the export of used car batteries and find solutions to the smuggling scrap car battery components," he said.

"This is having detrimental effects on local manufacturers in these value chains, including us as Chloride Zimbabwe battery manufacturers.

"Local companies stand to benefit a lot from these used batteries as the lead metal they contain is recycled to produce newer batteries, this in turn reduces the importation of the lead metal which the local industry has been finding difficult to import in contemporary times."

Mr Nyabereka said Zimbabwe had the capacity of half-a-million used batteries, which can be used to manufacture the equivalent number of new batteries locally, annually.