I was reading [this article](https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/lithium-costs-a-lot-of-money-so-why-arent-we-recycling-lithium-batteries/) and I was still a bit confused as to what the problem is. The article mentioned that only 1% of lithium ion batteries are recycled. The lithium batteries seem to be a huge controversy and downside to EVs because of the negative environmental impact. Making lithium ion batteries recyclable would be a huge gamechanger for EVs so I was wondering if someone who knew more could explain why.
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If it is hard or not can be irrelevant. Lest assume it is not trivial to do and you need to develop ways to do it, that looks like the situation we are in. Recycling are done if you can make money on it or if there is a legal requirement. To that add time and changes in the amount of the products made.
So one major reason it is not done on the large scale is that Li-ion batteries are relatively new in large-scale usage so the plants that can do that have not yet been built and the technology to do it is not mature.
Li-ion batteries also have a smaller effect on the environment if disposed of incorrectly compared to lead-acid and the previous use of mercury and cadmium-containing batteries so there is not the same kind of regulation on how they are handled.
If you look at the amount of li-ion battery production you get [graphs like this](https://lghomebatteryblog.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Li-ion-Battery-Capacity-per-Chemistry-Global.jpg) To that you should add that the batteries will be in usage for a couple of years so there has not been a lot of Li-ion required to be recycled in the past compared to what will it required today.
Building the recycling plants take time and developing way to do it efficiently cost money. So there will not be large-scale recycling plants before there is enough batteries to recycle them in a cost-efficient way.
The cost of Lithium has increased in recent year and look like [https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/1txVI/2/#](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/1txVI/2/#) so there has not been a huge incentive for private companies to invest in recycling. You get recycling set up by itself it can be done in a way that makes you money. The other way it occurs is if there are governmental requirements.
If you can make money from it changed with technological development but you need someone to invest the money, to begin with. Scale matters also so a larger supply of material to recycle can result in large and more cost-efficient recycling plants and the willingness to invest in research. The cost of the lithium you produce is also very important if it is profitable or not.
So more batteries that can be recycled and higher lithium costs can result in recycling developed by private companies, EU has regulations that require more and more of them to be recycled. That will increase recycling even if it is not profitable. I am not sure what drives the increase in battery recycling we see today, I would assume it is a combination of both.
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