Ramping up e-waste & battery recycling can spur a better impact from battery recycling

In today’s environment-conscious world, the lithium-ion battery (LIB) is the energy source that powers a range of products and technologies —from mobiles to electric vehicles to energy storage systems. With its ubiquitous presence, the rules guides and mandates its performance, sustainability, collection, recycling and second life need to be implemented properly, with an approach that streamlines every process in the ecosystem.

It is true that India has been updating its regulations from time to time, some as recently as March this year. However, there are still many steps to be taken so that the entire life cycle of these batteries is covered, and specific measures can be taken to optimise opportunities that arise from battery waste recycling.   

Recycling is a key component that needs focus if we are to promote a circular economy in the LIB segment. Manufacturers are required to pay environmental compensation charges through Extended Producer Responsibility certificates. The highest and lowest prices for these certificates is set between 100 per cent and 30 per cent of the environmental compensation leviable by the Union Ministry of Environment under the Battery Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2022, or BWMR in short.

Under this new legislation, the Central Pollution Control Board is in the process of preparing guidelines for imposing and collecting environmental compensation for non-compliance from manufacturers and entities involved in refurbishing and recycling waste batteries.

The BMWR are intended to subsidise a part of the materials feed by building a stream of recycled battery materials for the new production cycle, Moushumi Mohanty, senior programme manager, Clean Air Programme, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, had written in a story in Down To Earth (DTE).

The best part about the latest battery waste rules is that it is outcome-based and can be measurable. It defines mandatory targets for collection and recycling within a compliance timeframe, she added.

They have set a target of 90 per cent recovery of the battery material — 70 per cent by 2024-25, then 80 per cent by 2026, and 90 per cent after 2026-27 onwards, the expert wrote in a DTE story.

"Producers will also have to include 5 per cent of recycled material in the total dry weight of a cell by 2027-28, expanding to 20 per cent by 2030-31. In case of imported cells, the producer has to meet the obligation by getting the same amount of recycled materials utilised by other businesses or by exporting a similar amount of materials," she noted.

Along with the above measure, it would be fruitful if India could consider taking a few leaves out of some European Union and United States regulations that ensure a more efficient battery recycling ecosystem. The EU has instructed that minimum levels of critical minerals recovered during the battery recycling process must be reused in manufacturing new batteries. It has mandated that 16 per cent of cobalt, 85 per cent of lead, 6 per cent of lithium and 6 per cent of nickel garnered from manufacturing and consumer waste must be reused in new batteries.

Reusing recovered raw material always makes for resource-efficient use of salvaged material and will give India a sharper edge towards building a truly circular economy. The BWMR has provisions for such an outcome but the rules have to be strengthened for better implementation.

The EU targets

In the case of the EU, it is setting mandatory recycled content targets for cobalt, lead, lithium and nickel, which it hopes to meet by 2031. For cobalt, lithium and nickel, it intends to set increased targets by 2036. And all these targets will take into account how much material can be recovered from such waste, the technical feasibility of the recovery, the kind of manufacturing process involved, and how much time is needed by the economic operators to adapt their supply and manufacturing processes.

The EU legislation foresees battery manufacturing waste to be the likely “main source of secondary raw materials for battery manufacturing due to the increase in the production of batteries and should be subject to the same recycling processes as post-consumer waste.”

The EU legislation works on the principle of calculating the carbon footprint of a product and its overall life cycle, in this case, the LIB. The EU legislation requires that rechargeable industrial batteries with a capacity greater than 2 kWh, LMT batteries and electric vehicle batteries must be accompanied by a carbon footprint declaration. Subsequently, they would like to establish “carbon footprint performance classes that will enable batteries with lower overall carbon footprints to be identified”. Hence, batteries in the EU will have clear labelling requirements providing detailed information on their carbon footprint.

US carrot approach

However, the United States has a different approach to the EU, using a carrot to encourage use of recycled critical minerals. Here the federal, state, and local governments all have authority over LIB disposal and recycling. In its Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government choses to incentivize, rather than mandate, recycling and use of recycled minerals. So, the government is supportive of the recycling industry by making recovery of critical minerals a “good” business. It has also been granting massive loans to recyclers to build more facilities, and at the same time incentivising the auto industry to use the recovered products from recyclers by applying a federal EV tax credit to cars that have batteries with minimum mined critical minerals. 

What India should do

In India, with EVs getting a massive push from the government and large battery storage systems on the anvil, LIBs are bound to have a gigantic carbon footprint. It would be a good move to orchestrate the same kind of rules where a carbon footprint declaration is necessary from battery manufacturers. The declaration needs to be defined in detail so that greenwashing, which is on the rise in several sectors, does not occur here.

In the EU’s case, it has spelt out the details and will propose the level of the maximum carbon footprint threshold.

The BWMR missout on this opportunity. If Indian producers are also required to label their batteries with specifics that spell out their carbon footprint, it would be a big step forward. Along with this India could follow the US model of encouraging recyclers and incentivising battery manufacturers. In India, a productivity-linked incentive (PIL) for genuine and efficient LIB recyclers could go a long way in increasing critical mineral output. 

As India moves forward in trying to achieve net zero emissions by 2070 and as per its updated Nationally Determined Contribution, its commitment to reduce emission intensity of its GDP by 45 per cent by 2030, every big and small regulation must be thoroughly thought through. Only then can policies evolve in the best possible way to fast-track the journey towards genuine sustainability and a circular ecosystem. 

Nitin Gupta is the co-founder and chief executive of Attero, an electronic waste and battery recycling company.