According to USGS.gov, on average about 85% of all spent USA lead batteries
have been recovered for recycling since the 1980s.  These meet about 80% of
lead demand.  It differs a bit globally (higher mined to recycled ratio in
rapidly developing countries), but even in China 70% of lead is from
recycled sources (which is why it was not especially shocking that the
enviro group BAN.org announced that they detected high recycled content in
lead paint found in Chinese toys, though BAN's intentions were perverse, to
ban lead from recycling programs from going back to Chinese lead smelters).

Heavy equipment, such as trucks and tractors, still account for a very high
proportion of the total lead demand, and they are not going "hybrid" anytime
soon, so I would not panic to sell my shares of lead scrap.  What is most
probable in my opinion (not being an expert in failure problems in leadfree
solder) is that the environmentally sensitive nature of extracting
replacement rare earth metals, such as NiMH and Li batteries (and tin and
silver in solder) will cause the next generation of environmentalists to
pass laws for "tin--free", "lithium-free" and "nickel-free" products.  The
main danger from that is a possible outbreak of cynicism towards
environmentalists (Iike myself), leading to the extinction of species.

This should provide a lot of job security to engineers.

Kidding aside, I don't mean to be cynical, what I observe is a general lack
of integration between environmentalists and engineers, and the big problem
is that drama majors apply for jobs at environmental organizations more
frequently than engineering majors.  Union of Concerned Scientists was
formed around this same observation in the 1970s, I think.   I chose
economics as a major, and am generally a deer in headlights when reading
posts on the LF forum, but as a policy would recommend taxing (or at least,
stop subsidizing) things you want humans to use less of, be it mined
materials (like tin) from coral reefs or toxics (lead) at the end of the
pipe according to the economic proportion of their environmental damage, and
then let the free market work it out.

Robin Ingenthron
American Retroworks Inc.

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