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Powering a Greener Tomorrow: How Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Can Benefit Your Business

Since they were first developed in 1985, lithium-ion batteries have become an integral part of daily life. These batteries power everything from our laptops and electric vehicles to pacemakers, and while the demand for lithium-ion batteries continues to increase, so do concerns about their impact on our environment. Fortunately, there is already a sustainable solution: lithium-ion battery recycling.

By recycling lithium-ion batteries, businesses can contribute to a greener future for everyone while reaping the financial benefits. While we'll get to those economic benefits in a moment, let's begin with a few ways that recycling lithium-ion batteries helps out the environment.

The Environmental Benefits of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

  • Reducing Landfill Waste: Despite the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests that all lithium-ion batteries be recycled or disposed of at specialized facilities, about 100 million batteries are improperly discarded each year. The batteries usually end up in landfills, where they leach dangerous and destructive chemicals into the environment, increase the spread of disease, and pollute local water sources. Recycling the batteries helps to reduce waste, protects our natural resources, and reduces the chemicals that make us sick.
  • Conservation: Extracting and processing the raw materials used in lithium-ion batteries can be extremely detrimental to the environment. For example, cobalt mining destroys forests and decreases biodiversity, while graphite mining produces dust that can be harmful to humans and animals. Recycling the batteries means nature gets time to heal.
  • A Decent Strategy: One of the best strategies we can use as people and as business owners to keep our planet healthy is to promote a circular economy. In a circular economy, rather than being disposed of and reextracted, materials are kept in circulation via recycling, and new products are created using those materials at a fraction of the price.

The Economic Benefits of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

Now that we've discussed a few of the environmental rewards of recycling batteries let's discuss a few of the economic perks of recycling:

  • Save Money: Lithium-ion batteries are composed of valuable raw materials such as nickel, lithium, cobalt, and graphite. Recycling the batteries means that businesses can recover and reuse these raw materials in new batteries or other products. This can help reduce the cost of sourcing raw materials by up to 30%.
  • Generating Revenue: Some recycling companies actually offer financial incentives for businesses that recycle their batteries. These incentives are a great way to increase profit further.
  • Avoiding Penalties: One of the best reasons to recycle lithium-ion batteries is to avoid fines. Government environmental regulators such as the EPA regularly charge fines for those who fail to comply with hazardous material disposal regulations. Violations can result in fines up to $1 million per infraction.

Recycling Success:

Still not sure if recycling batteries is a good idea for your business? Consider Tesla, the United States' leading electric vehicle manufacturer, who, years ago, created a recycling program for their EV batteries as a way to save money and decrease their environmental footprint.

Now, 100% of Tesla's end-of-life batteries are recycled at gigafactories equipped with facilities that can process the batteries and recover any valuable raw materials. The program has not only reduced Tesla's environmental impact but has also guaranteed a reliable supply of the materials it needs to produce more batteries.

Choosing a Partner:

Though Tesla's EV battery recycling initiative is commendable, it's also expensive, and everyone can't afford built-in recycling facilities. For many businesses, it is much more cost-effective to choose a recycling partner. A few things to consider when choosing a recycling partner are:

  • Certified: Check your recycling partner's certifications and make sure they are well-equipped to handle hazardous materials. Checking that certification could protect you from future liability.
  • Sustainability: A company that is as dedicated to sustainability as you are and shares your mission for environmentally responsible growth.
  • Proven experience: Finding a partner with real-life experience in lithium-ion battery recycling will save you time and money. Amateurs make mistakes that lead to fines.

Reliable partners like Interco, who's provided recycling services all over the United States since 1996, are certified, experienced, and sustainable. During its years of service, Interco developed a simple but efficient method for recycling your lithium-ion batteries:

  1. Sorting and Disassembly: Interco collects the batteries, sorts them by type, and breaks them down into separate components.
  2. Recovery: Anything that can be recovered will be. Interco extracts components using special equipment and techniques honed over decades of operation.
  3. Refining: The materials Interco recovers are refined to meet the purity standards necessary to make brand-new batteries.

Using these steps, Interco ensures that recycling lithium-ion batteries are properly and ethically processed. Partnering with Interco, you are partnering with a leading provider of battery recycling services that's committed to helping businesses like yours achieve their sustainability and profit goals.

Contact Interco today, and you can start benefiting from their years of expertise and commitment to a greener tomorrow.