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Better question to ask: Are current EV companies even properly recycling the batteries? The lithium itself is recyclable. However what’s the process for it? Is

by xyst 3y ago

Better question to ask: Are current EV companies even properly recycling the batteries? The lithium itself is recyclable. However what’s the process for it? Is it so labor intensive that it makes recycling not worth it? Remember: we were sold on the infinite recyclability of plastics. Yet look how that’s turned out. Industry did their own studies (in the 70s…), found recycling to not be cost effective (sorting issue, different types of plastic not recyclable, limited lifetime of plastic such that it could only be recycled a couple of times before becoming useless). Yet these companies still pushed this junk on us and we continue to live with those repercussions today. Also battery packs are often packed with copious amounts of glue/adhesive and other items that don’t appear to be recyclable. Does that make the recycling process more difficult? As a battery pack in general, what can be recovered? What goes to the landfill?

vbezhenar 3y ago
> we were sold on the infinite recyclability of plastics Really? I thought plastic won because it's cheap. I never heard about anyone recycling it.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  Yes. These things can both be true: We were sold on plastics being very recyclable, and hardly anyone ever actually recycles them. It's not a contradiction, it's a deception.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
> found recycling to not be cost effective. Cost effective for who? If you legislate that the producers of packaging have to pay for whatever system they choose to clean up after themselves then they tend to reduce how much plastic they use, and make what they do use easier to recycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili... If you let them offload the costs as externalities, then they'll do whatever is cheapest for them, which is pretending to recycle.
concordDance 3y ago
> we continue to live with those repercussions today I've yet to have an answer for what the repercussions in the developed world of non-recycling plastics actaully is. Once plastic is thrown away it can be put in landfill and my understanding is that landfills in the developed world are as a rule well sealed and the leakage is negligible. Landfilled plastic rather than recycled plastic means more oil gets turned into plastic rather than burnt for energy, increasing the price of oil and thus increasing investment in more carbon neutral energy sources. So I struggle to see the benefits of cost-inefficient plastic recycling, particularly compared to all the other things that could be done with those man hours.
- sofixa 3y ago
  A lot of that plastic gets exported to other countries where landfills might not be as leak-proof, or gets thrown outside of dedicated spaces (like on the side of the road) and thus ends up in nature. There it directly damages wildlife (birds chocking on plastic bags and related), and/or breaks down into microplastics which are everywhere in water and animals, and we consume, with unclear effects on humans or biodiversity. Furthermore, I don't get the link between increased plastics, price of oil and investment in carbon neutral energy. Price of oil is a delicate balance by OPEC to extract as much money as possible - they have drastically more capacity than they're currently pumping and exporting, and it's carefully managed, on purpose. Reducing oil use is paramount to limit the damage to the planet; reducing plastic waste is too. Waiting for a potential cycle of "lots of plastic waste" -> "maybe prices of oil will go higher if OPEC stops existing" -> "maybe this will incentivise more investments in alternative energy sources" -> "maybe this will diminish plastic use" (how? according to market theories, the price of oil should go down if use goes down, so there will be even more incentive for plastic production; but as we discussed previously, oil is a very special market) is... not a good option.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    But if the plastic is put in a local landfill (my local waste is) then is there any non-negligible harm? (As an aside: I find it odd you seem to have plastic reduction as a similar priority to oil use reduction given the effects of climate change seem far more severe than even third world plastic disposal)
foobarian 3y ago
I think at this point I'd take some trash if it means net negative CO2 emissions
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Yes, the industry is recycling their batteries at a fairly high rate. Most of the recycling is post-industrial. After a battery is made, it's tested, and if it fails testing, it is recycled. There hasn't been a large amount of post-consumer car battery recycling because there aren't many 20 year old car batteries out there. The reuse market for old batteries is higher than expected, and people reusing batteries pay more than recyclers. But the post-industrial plants are humming along, and will expand to accept post-consumer batteries once the supply arrives. Everybody brings up the plastic-recycling bugbear. There are a bunch of reasons why plastic recycling is hard, most of which don't apply to batteries. A better example is lead-acid battery recycling. The US has a >99% lead acid battery recycling rate. Lithium batteries are much larger and have a much higher content of valuable materials, so will be much more fruitful to recycle than lead acid batteries. The main materials recovered out of batteries are nickel, copper and manganese, which are quite valuable. Lithium is secondary -- lithium batteries don't actually contain a lot of lithium, and lithium is cheap and common. New plants are set up to recover lithium because the price of lithium has increased, but old plants don't.
- boringg 3y ago
  Wait we have a 99% lead acid battery recycling rate? I don't mean to be suspect but that seems suspiciously high - maybe pushed by an industry rep group or something. Similar to how oil and gas say they flare 99.5% of their fugitive emissions instead of it getting vented.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    It's an easily falsifiable statement. If it's wrong the HN personality will not let it lie and proof that it's wrong will be quickly posted. It could be you!
    - boringg 3y ago
      I looked into it -- the Battery Council International is the one who promotes near perfect recycling rate. Listen - I'm sure its a high rate of recycling which should be celebrated. There's just no way its 99% that's all I'm saying. Maybe 99% of the components that make their way to e-waste get recycled but theres no way even 80% of batteries even make it to e-waste.
coryrc 3y ago
It's stupid to recycle when we can reuse first. There are nearly zero production EV batteries which are unsuitable for reuse for stationary applications. Even if the quantity is too low for mass commercial scale (first gen Leaf) they're still good for home backup or hobby projects.
_ea1k 3y ago
I wouldn't say that EV companies are, but the battery recycling businesses are working pretty hard at it. It won't really get started until there are more EV batteries to recycle. Volumes are still relatively low compared to the number of new packs being built, as the packs tend to last for a long time. Even post-crash packs often get reused rather than recycled.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> Better question to ask: Are current EV companies even properly recycling the batteries? Tesla has set this up, but hasn't recycled many batteries yet since they mostly get second lives in at home "power walls" (which I guess, is why the started up that business?). We have another 5-10 years before those batteries start needing to be recycled.

by xyst 3y ago

vbezhenar 3y ago

> we were sold on the infinite recyclability of plastics Really? I thought plastic won because it's cheap. I never heard about anyone recycling it.

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
Yes. These things can both be true: We were sold on plastics being very recyclable, and hardly anyone ever actually recycles them. It's not a contradiction, it's a deception.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

> found recycling to not be cost effective. Cost effective for who? If you legislate that the producers of packaging have to pay for whatever system they choose to clean up after themselves then they tend to reduce how much plastic they use, and make what they do use easier to recycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili... If you let them offload the costs as externalities, then they'll do whatever is cheapest for them, which is pretending to recycle.

concordDance 3y ago

> we continue to live with those repercussions today I've yet to have an answer for what the repercussions in the developed world of non-recycling plastics actaully is. Once plastic is thrown away it can be put in landfill and my understanding is that landfills in the developed world are as a rule well sealed and the leakage is negligible. Landfilled plastic rather than recycled plastic means more oil gets turned into plastic rather than burnt for energy, increasing the price of oil and thus increasing investment in more carbon neutral energy sources. So I struggle to see the benefits of cost-inefficient plastic recycling, particularly compared to all the other things that could be done with those man hours.

sofixa 3y ago
A lot of that plastic gets exported to other countries where landfills might not be as leak-proof, or gets thrown outside of dedicated spaces (like on the side of the road) and thus ends up in nature. There it directly damages wildlife (birds chocking on plastic bags and related), and/or breaks down into microplastics which are everywhere in water and animals, and we consume, with unclear effects on humans or biodiversity. Furthermore, I don't get the link between increased plastics, price of oil and investment in carbon neutral energy. Price of oil is a delicate balance by OPEC to extract as much money as possible - they have drastically more capacity than they're currently pumping and exporting, and it's carefully managed, on purpose. Reducing oil use is paramount to limit the damage to the planet; reducing plastic waste is too. Waiting for a potential cycle of "lots of plastic waste" -> "maybe prices of oil will go higher if OPEC stops existing" -> "maybe this will incentivise more investments in alternative energy sources" -> "maybe this will diminish plastic use" (how? according to market theories, the price of oil should go down if use goes down, so there will be even more incentive for plastic production; but as we discussed previously, oil is a very special market) is... not a good option.
- concordDance 3y ago
  But if the plastic is put in a local landfill (my local waste is) then is there any non-negligible harm? (As an aside: I find it odd you seem to have plastic reduction as a similar priority to oil use reduction given the effects of climate change seem far more severe than even third world plastic disposal)

foobarian 3y ago

I think at this point I'd take some trash if it means net negative CO2 emissions

bryanlarsen 3y ago

Yes, the industry is recycling their batteries at a fairly high rate. Most of the recycling is post-industrial. After a battery is made, it's tested, and if it fails testing, it is recycled. There hasn't been a large amount of post-consumer car battery recycling because there aren't many 20 year old car batteries out there. The reuse market for old batteries is higher than expected, and people reusing batteries pay more than recyclers. But the post-industrial plants are humming along, and will expand to accept post-consumer batteries once the supply arrives. Everybody brings up the plastic-recycling bugbear. There are a bunch of reasons why plastic recycling is hard, most of which don't apply to batteries. A better example is lead-acid battery recycling. The US has a >99% lead acid battery recycling rate. Lithium batteries are much larger and have a much higher content of valuable materials, so will be much more fruitful to recycle than lead acid batteries. The main materials recovered out of batteries are nickel, copper and manganese, which are quite valuable. Lithium is secondary -- lithium batteries don't actually contain a lot of lithium, and lithium is cheap and common. New plants are set up to recover lithium because the price of lithium has increased, but old plants don't.

boringg 3y ago
Wait we have a 99% lead acid battery recycling rate? I don't mean to be suspect but that seems suspiciously high - maybe pushed by an industry rep group or something. Similar to how oil and gas say they flare 99.5% of their fugitive emissions instead of it getting vented.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  It's an easily falsifiable statement. If it's wrong the HN personality will not let it lie and proof that it's wrong will be quickly posted. It could be you!
  - boringg 3y ago
    I looked into it -- the Battery Council International is the one who promotes near perfect recycling rate. Listen - I'm sure its a high rate of recycling which should be celebrated. There's just no way its 99% that's all I'm saying. Maybe 99% of the components that make their way to e-waste get recycled but theres no way even 80% of batteries even make it to e-waste.

coryrc 3y ago

It's stupid to recycle when we can reuse first. There are nearly zero production EV batteries which are unsuitable for reuse for stationary applications. Even if the quantity is too low for mass commercial scale (first gen Leaf) they're still good for home backup or hobby projects.

_ea1k 3y ago

I wouldn't say that EV companies are, but the battery recycling businesses are working pretty hard at it. It won't really get started until there are more EV batteries to recycle. Volumes are still relatively low compared to the number of new packs being built, as the packs tend to last for a long time. Even post-crash packs often get reused rather than recycled.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

> Better question to ask: Are current EV companies even properly recycling the batteries? Tesla has set this up, but hasn't recycled many batteries yet since they mostly get second lives in at home "power walls" (which I guess, is why the started up that business?). We have another 5-10 years before those batteries start needing to be recycled.