E-Bike Boom Hits Lead on Chinese Recycled Batteries: Commodities
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Recycled battery lead from electric bicycles is leaving China, the world’s biggest consumer and producer of the metal, with the largest glut in six years.
Supply will outpace demand this year as consumers trade in old e-bikes for new ones that use less lead, even after the market expanded 5 percent in 2012, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. Recycled metal from cars and e-bikes represented 35 percent of supply in 2011, up from 21 percent a decade earlier, the International Lead and Zinc Study Group said. Battery junk from e-bikes, which use about 11 kilograms (24 pounds) of lead, will more than triple to 190,000 metric tons this year from 2010, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates.