International experts work with Chinese lead industry to promote good practice at manufacturing plants

International experts have completed a successful training mission to China where they worked alongside the domestic lead industry to promote good environmental performance and occupational health and safety practices at one of the country’s leading secondary lead smelters. 

The International Lead Management Center (ILMC), an arm of the International Lead Association, visited China this spring to demonstrate to project managers from the China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association (CNIA), alongside staff from the Basel Convention Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific (BCRC), the use and application of the ILMC’s Benchmarking Assessment Tool (BAT). 

The tool compares, on a qualitative basis, the recovery and recycling procedures and processes with the industry’s well established good practices and identifies key areas of ULAB recovery and recycling operations that should be improved. 

Following the benchmarking seminar CNIA managers, BCRC staff and the ILMC introduced company delegates from the New Chunxing Group to the BAT at the New Chunxing secondary lead plant close to Xuzhou City, located between Beijing and Shanghai. 

The delegates from the New Chunxing Group, under the guidance of an adviser from the CNIA team, then inspected various stages of the process at the Xuzhou plant and compared the procedures and practices using the BAT.  All the delegates agreed that the BAT provided an easy to apply qualitative comparison comparing recovery and recycling procedures and processes with industry good practices. 

ILA Managing Director, Dr Andy Bush, said: “It is very encouraging to see such effective international co-operation on occupational health and safety practices in a country that is such an important lead producer. This is just one example of how ILMC and its partners bring about continuous improvement in the lead industry in various projects around the world.”

The Xuzhou secondary lead plant is one of five operations in the New Chunxing Groupwhich has an annual output of approximately 100,000 metric tonnes of lead bullion. The plant is in the Pizhou Circular Economy Industrial Zone and is undergoing a major upgrade as part of a National Government programme to raise the standards for ULAB recovery and recycling.

The New Chunxing Group and the CNIA will now discuss the outcomes of the workshop to find the best way to use the BAT in the context of raising the standards for environmental performance, occupational health and safety among the entire CNIA membership.

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Notes to editors

About the Benchmarking Assessment Tool
The BAT allows for a qualitative assessment to be made of good practices for the environmentally sound management of ULAB consistent with the UN Basel Convention Technical guidelines and the ILA’s Guidance Notes on Working Safely with Lead. The Chinese Government is one of over 170 countries that have endorsed the Basel Convention Technical Guidelines for ULAB recovery.

About ILMC 
The International Lead Management Center (ILMC) was created in 1996 by the international lead industry, in conjunction with the OECD. The ILMC offers hands-on advice and assistance in developing countries and nations in transition across the globe. It works with the lead industry, the Basel Secretariat (SBC), government environment agencies and intergovernmental bodies, such as the UN International Lead Zinc Study Group (ILZSG) and NGOs such as the Blacksmith Institute.

 The ILMC assists with the management of the risks associated with lead and its impact on the environment and human health across all aspects of the lead industry from mining, smelting, refining product manufacturing and recycling. 

 About ILA

The International Lead Association is a membership body that supports companies involved in the mining, smelting, refining and recycling of lead. The ILA represents the producers of about 3 million tonnes of lead and almost two thirds of lead production in the western world.

With offices in the UK and USA the ILA provides a range of technical, scientific and communications support and is focused on all aspects of the industry’s safe production, use and recycling of lead.  It funds bodies such as the ILMC and the International Lead Zinc Research Organization.  Visit www.ila-lead.org