A global rush into battery recycling is good news for automakers worried about future raw material supplies. But the wave of new factories poses a big risk for the recycling industry itself: there’s nowhere near enough scrap yet to feed them all.
Big-name auto giants, specialist recycling firms and even miner Glencore are all pouring money into transforming waste into the commodities needed to fuel the electric-vehicle revolution. As a result, global battery-recycling capacity will surge nearly 10 times from 2021 to 2025, and is expected to surpass available scrap supply this year, according to consultancy Circular Energy Storage.
Shortages are likely to persist well into the next decade while the industry waits for early models of EVs to hit junk yards in big numbers, and by 2025 there may be three times more recycling factory space than scrap to run the plants. Of course, the old batteries will eventually start rolling in, but recycling companies will have to survive until then.