Oman’s Arab Lead Company launched its first $13-million state-of-the-art lead acid battery recycling project at the Rusayl Industrial Estate in Muscat last week, said a report.

The project bodes well for the safe handling and disposal of a waste commodity, which in large quantities tends to end up in municipal landfills to the detriment of ground aquifers and the local environment, added the Oman Daily Observer report.

But more than serving as a mere disposal facility, the plant is also equipped to extract and reprocess the lead content, a commercially valuable ingredient, of used car and truck batteries and return it into the global supply chain in an environmentally sustainable manner, it said.

Other recyclable components of automotive batteries, including the plastic casing and electrolyte, are salvaged, reprocessed and restored back into the supply chain, thereby providing a near 100 per cent recovery solution with regard to the safe management of potentially harmful lead acid batteries in the sultanate.

Additionally, Be’ah — the wholly government owned solid waste management utility — has welcomed and endorsed this investment.

Top officials of Be’ah joined Mohammed bin Salim al Toobi, Minister of Environment and Climate Affairs, at the formal opening of the plant last week.

Also in attendance was Mohsen bin Mohammed al Shaikh, chairman of Muscat Municipality, as well as members of the Municipal Council, added the report.