this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2023
9 points (100.0% liked)

Environment

3924 readers
5 users here now

Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
remington
alyaza
vord
gyrfalcon
9
The US doesn't have a law mandating EV battery recycling. Should it? (grist.org)
submitted 2 years ago by alyaza to c/environment
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] bonn2 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fair warning, haven't done a ton of research into this yet.

As far as I know recycling batteries is generally a pretty expensive process so mandating it may be a pretty hard sell. The US government should definitely be investing money into improving those processes though.

[โ€“] Nouveau_Burnswick 3 points 1 year ago

I think an easier solution would be cost neutral mandated storage of expended batteries. This would happen in 4 phases:

  1. Upon purchase, there is a tax/free to cover transport and storage costs, and a deposit relative to battery size/improper disposal impact
  2. Once expended, the batteries are returned to the closest local centre. Deposit is returned to the customer.
  3. From the local centres, batteries are collected and stored, potentially long term. This cost is captured in the tax/fee.
  4. Battery recyclers can purchase the expended batteries for the cost of only the tax/fee and deposit. This could potentially be reimbursed based on % of battery recycled, but I don't think that is economically necessary.

Basically a combination of a bottle deposit and a tire fee. It ensures batteries have a safe space to be stored until such time as it is economically viable to recycle them.

As recycling becomes more economical, recyclers might start to purchase direct from consumers, removing state involvement from the loop.