The state of lead-acid battery recycling in Malawi

How used lead-acid batteries move through Malawi’s economy, why so much processing happens unsafely, and the policy options that could help to change it.

44% of children aged 0–14 have blood lead above 5 µg/dL (IHME, 2021)

~2,083 t of used lead-acid batteries are produced in Malawi each year

~27% estimated to be processed in unregistered facilities

0 legal, registered lead smelters or battery manufacturers

Unsafe lead-acid battery recycling is, at its core, a market problem. Operators who melt, smelt, or refine lead without pollution controls or protective equipment can pay more for used batteries than safe, compliant recyclers can because they operate with lower costs. This means that batteries are often sold to illegal operators. Malawi is a clear illustration of how this dynamic can play out.

Between November 2025 and March 2026, LABRI carried out a market scoping assessment in Malawi to understand the scale of unsafe used lead-acid battery (ULAB) recycling and whether it could be reduced through market and trade policies. This case study sets out what we found about the market and sets out three policy options for promoting safer ULAB recycling there.

The analysis is organised around three aspects: how large the problem is, whether these batteries can be recycled safely and at what cost, and what conditions exist for policy to act. It closes with three feasible policy options.

01 · THE PROBLEM

MANY OF MALAWI’S USED LEAD-ACID BATTERIES ARE PROCESSED BY INFORMAL SMELTERS

KEY TAKEAWAY

Malawi generates roughly 2,083 tonnes of ULABs a year and, according to international trade data, exports 359 T of refined lead. Malawi has no registered smelting facilities, suggesting the existence of informal smelting. Our interviews confirmed this.

Both international trade data and Malawian customs records show processed lead being exported from Malawi. Malawi has no registered smelters, which suggests that lead is being processed in the informal market. 

We estimate that around 2,083 tonnes of ULABs are generated in Malawi each year. Of these, trade data shows that 43% are exported whole. Of the remaining 53%, we estimate that this is split into 27% that are smelted informally and exported as lead and 26% that are either dumped, exported either illegally or under the wrong HS code (e.g., as scrap metal), or refurbished for continued local use in various forms. This is summarised in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. The Malawi ULAB market, as currently understood. Batteries enter through retailers and stockists, pass through repairers and scrap dealers, and leave through three channels: refined lead from informal smelting (~27%), whole batteries exported for recycling elsewhere (~47%), and other fates including dumping, local reuse and mis-declared export (~26%).

These estimates are based on datasets that we think are likely to be incomplete, and we do not have strong confidence in these specific numbers. However, we are confident that these channels of informal processing and export exist and continue to process large numbers of batteries. We also believe that the volume of batteries in the Malawi market is likely to grow significantly in coming years. Rural electrification is a central goal of Malawi’s Agenda 2063, and off-grid solar (a meaningful share of it still lead-acid battery based) is expanding rapidly. 

A note on solar batteries

Solar batteries account for roughly 30% of the lead-acid battery market in Malawi. Brand-name solar retailers and installers in Malawi sell certified, lithium-ion products and therefore do not contribute to the LAB waste stream. However, the market is dominated by unaffiliated solar retailers, and lead-acid batteries are still common in solar home systems. These batteries are sold in stores in Malawi or are imported directly by consumers. In some cases, consumers repurpose their old automotive LABs. 

Another unique feature of the Malawian market is that the export of processed lead is highly concentrated. A small number of operators handle the great majority of processed-lead output, rather than a diffuse mass of informal actors.

Figure 3. Recorded processed-lead export volumes by operator (anonymised), 2023–2026. A small number of operators account for almost all recorded output — a concentration that makes targeted approaches more feasible than in a fragmented market. Source: customs data (2026).

02 · SAFE RECYCLING AND ITS COST

SAFE RECYCLING IS CURRENTLY UNCOMPETITIVE IN MALAWI

KEY TAKEAWAY

The safest option for Malawi is to export its batteries to a safe, registered facility abroad. However, at prevailing prices, buying and exporting a truckload of ULABs to a safe facility incurs a loss of around USD 8,657 (about USD 6 per battery). This is because informal ULAB recyclers offer prices that are considerably higher than those that  safe recyclers currently offer.

Domestic safe recycling is unlikely to be viable given the size of the Malawian market

Safe battery recycling facilities require expensive, purpose-built plants that are costly to build and to run. Because of this, a plant only makes financial sense if it processes a large volume of batteries each year. There are differing expert opinions on what the minimum volume of required batteries is in order to sustain a safe facility. One commonly cited threshold is 24,000 metric tonnes of annual ULAB recycling.

Malawi's ~2,000 tonnes of batteries falls well below this threshold. As a result, we primarily considered options that would help to facilitate the export of Malawi's ULABs to established safe facilities elsewhere in the region.

Exporting ULABs to safe facilities is currently unviable

Our analysis modelled the cost of exporting a single 30-tonne truckload of ULABs from Malawi to a facility in South Africa:

Figure 2. Unit economics of exporting one truckload of ULABs to a safe facility. The price needed to buy the batteries in Malawi (~USD 22,491) already exceeds the revenue a safe South African facility would pay for them (~USD 20,509), before transport. Adding freight and clearance (~USD 6,675) produces an all-in loss of roughly USD 8,657 per truckload.

In plain terms, a compliant exporter would have to outbid informal smelters for the batteries and absorb the cost of shipping them across a border to a facility that pays less than the smelters do. The loss works out to about USD 6 per battery, or roughly 8% of the retail price of a new battery. It is also possible that, as demand for the batteries increases, the price would increase further.

03 · THE POLICY ENVIRONMENT

A FOUNDATION FOR POLICY ALREADY EXISTS

KEY TAKEAWAY

Malawi has part of the legal and administrative foundations of a ULAB policy: it is a Basel Convention signatory, its revenue authority is empowered to track battery movements closely, and its 2024 E-Waste Policy already contains EPR provisions that could be extended to ULABs without new primary legislation.

A usable legal foundation

Malawi is a Basel Convention signatory, with existing requirements for waste-handling licences and permits for hazardous-waste exports. The 2024 National E-Waste Management Policy also explicitly references EPR obligations. Although it does not yet cover ULABs, this policy potentially offers a foundation that could be extended to them without amending primary legislation.

Design considerations

Policymakers looking to incentivise exports of ULABs to safe facilities would have to pay particular attention to three features of the regulatory and market landscape:

• Cross-border trade. Informal cross-border movement of goods means that any policy that ties a financial incentive to a verified export would need to include rigorous verification checks.

• Coordination across institutions. Responsibility for waste, trade, standards and revenue functions sits with different bodies, so effective programmes would require coordination across them.

• An evolving regulatory remit. Malawi has a dedicated environmental regulator that is relatively recently established and actively expanding its capacity. Any new policy would need to be sensitive and responsive to these changes.

04 · POTENTIAL POLICY OPTIONS

THREE POTENTIAL POLICY OPTIONS

Building on the findings above, three models could in principle reduce unsafe recycling in Malawi. They are not mutually exclusive and may work best in combination with each other.

OPTION 1 Subsidise safe exports as a bridge to an EPR scheme
MECHANISM	Subsidise the export of ULABs to safe facilities so that compliant collectors can compete with informal recyclers. Introducing this alongside an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme — making battery importers responsible for safe end-of-life handling — could help to build the market and government capacity needed to sustain this in the long-run.
WHY IT COULD WORK	Closes the ~8% market loss and buys time to develop the systems needed to run the policy unaided once the subsidy ends.
MAIN RISK	Capital-intensive, with a risk of not being self-sustaining once the subsidy expires if the supporting systems are not in place after the subsidy stops.

OPTION 2 Restrict, ban, or apply a tariff on processed lead exports
MECHANISM	A tariff on, or restriction of, processed lead exports raises the cost of processing lead in Malawi and improves the relative attractiveness of exporting whole batteries instead. Malawi has precedent for analogous export controls on scrap metal.
WHY IT COULD WORK	A more durable lever than case-by-case enforcement, and one that acts on a concentrated, identifiable activity.
MAIN RISK	Restrictions could displace activity into informal channels rather than end it, reducing the visibility of the activity without reducing the health risks caused by it. This option would likely be more promising when paired with a viable alternative for collected batteries.

OPTION 3 Targeted improvement at the existing largest processing sites
MECHANISM	Because processing is concentrated at a small number of sites, targeted technical support (e.g., emissions controls, worker safety, environmental monitoring) at those sites could deliver outsized reductions in lead exposure. Malawi’s framework already provides for licensing and inspection of such operations.
WHY IT COULD WORK	Concentration means a few well-chosen interventions can reach most of the harm (see below).
MAIN RISK	Improvements must be calibrated so upgraded sites are not simply undercut by newer, less-compliant entrants. There is likely an insufficient number of ULABs in the market to sustain a truly high-quality facility (see section 2 above).

IN CONCLUSION

Malawi is a strong case study in how the economics of lead-acid battery recycling can perpetuate unsafe practices. In many countries around the world, safe recyclers cannot yet compete on price, and closing that gap is where well-designed policy can make a major difference.

If you have any questions about the content of this case study, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at contact@labrecyclinginitiative.com.