RSR North America stands alone in the U.S. secondary lead industry.

Our environmental performance and worker safety and health protections are second to none.

We have installed state of the art technology that has cut our emissions of lead and other hazardous air pollutants by more than 95 percent, and we continue to develop and implement new ways of protecting our employees. In fact, our workers have some of the lowest blood lead levels in the industry, and our City of Industry, California facility has a goal to be the first respirator-free secondary lead smelter in the United States.

But that is not enough.

We believe our industry bears an obligation to implement controls and standards that reflect the best pollution control technologies currently available. Many secondary lead smelters continue to use pollution control equipment that was considered state of the art three decades ago. This will not ensure adequate protection of human health and the environment. As an industry, we must evolve, and we must do it in a way that ensures the long-term sustainability of our industry and the environment. Twenty-first century environmental problems warrant forward-looking, twenty-first century solutions and not pollution controls that have been outdated since the 1970s.

We also believe that batteries from North America should be reclaimed in North America. A recent report by Pure Earth and UNICEF, https://www.unicef.org/reports/toxic-truth-childrens-exposure-to-lead-pollution-2020, highlights the importance of proper stewardship in our industry. The USMCA trade pact will ensure that member countries maintain transparent compliance with the world’s most comprehensive enforced regulation to protect workers, local citizens and the environment. Recyclers anywhere in the world that cannot meet these stringent requirements should not be permitted to operate.

Lead batteries are the world’s best example of a true closed-loop lifecycle. In a market with no primary lead production, recycling spent batteries domestically preserves the closed-loop, and sustains a healthy and growing domestic battery industry to meet society’s energy storage needs of tomorrow.