Americans can't recycle electric batteries? We are already doing it here in aus.

Australia recycles ~5% of their lithium-ion batteries, the rest is still going into landfills.

No, they are going into storage, no one is throwing batteries in landfill, they are expensive. and considering the shelf life on the average battery is 15-20 years and that australia has been slow on uptake of electric cars there is just not that many needing to be recycled yet.
Right now we are able to recycle 87% of a lithium-ion battery and a tonne of scrap from those batteries is estimated to be worth $4,400, so tossing them in landfill is a horrible idea.
Most scrap yards here are stockpiling them as they come in.

This post was edited by Plaguefear on Oct 28 2022 05:11am

Impressive if that's the case, because it isn't in the US. What are they doing with the batteries before storage? Do you guys have multiple companies that can discharge the batteries before being dismantled or you have scrap yards gambling they can stockpile them? Because from what I've seen there aren't many companies that can do it for a profit yet and it's still a dangerous to keep a bunch at the same place.

There's still a good amount of E-waste shipped to West African countries where it'll become a great environmental mess.

Storage is no real issue, people do not realise australia is 3/4 the size of the united states we got storage for days, our car yards are generally huge, no need to keep anything in one place.
We have 5 companies profiting off them currently so you can just stockpile them to the point where its profitable to move them then send them off.

It's not just about having the place to store them, it's about storing them safely. Don't they need some sort of environmental accreditation for that. I'm saying that because the risks from a single incident could outweigh all their good work. I'll take where I live as an exemple, we have a couple companies (only 4-5 I could think of) that can handle Li-ion batteries and none at the moment accredited for recycling, with only one on the way in a couple years. I'm glad recycling is an option, I just hope it becomes a viable option sooner than later as we're still sending good quantities in landfills over here.

This post was edited by Chainsaw47 on Oct 28 2022 05:51am

EVs as they are produced right now are unsustainable, they need to do like 700-800K kms in order to be worth using vs thermic engine cars.
2 tons vehicles with 500 kg lithium batteries are nowhere near a "solution" or a "good thing", it is pure greenwashing and without subsidies, it would go to the cave. (Especially considering electricy raises of prices lmao)
This said, a new type of batteries is being made (in usa yes) using nuclear wastes and nano diamonds. Looks insane on the paper (last longer than anything : 28000 years), let's see the cost though.

https://ndb.technology/

This post was edited by Melatonina on Oct 28 2022 05:43am

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/17/only-2-of-lithium-ion-batteries-in-australia-are-recycled-report-says

As of 4 years ago Australia was at 2% recycling rate for lithium ion batteries and 98% recycling rate for lead-acid batteries.

Yeah its up to 5% now, but we are not putting them in landfill, they are a gold mine long term.