Lithium Australia NL Sustainability and Battery Recycling Strategy
Envirostream mixed-battery recycling
Raw material
Li chemicals
Lithium
Australia"
Recycling
Batteries
Envirostream, Australia's only mixed-battery recycling facility, is at the forefront of innovation in
sustainable battery-processing methods, having developed safe and innovative management solutions to
what could soon become two of the world's most pressing environmental issues: the problematic sourcing
of energy metals for LIBS and the effective management of toxic battery waste.
The newly expanded Envirostream plant has now been commissioned. Designed and built in-house, and
based on international best practice and sustainability, it currently has a feed capacity of 3,000 tpa. The
Envirostream facility can efficiently sort, shred and separate all types of spent batteries. In the case of EOL
LIBS, all the active components – cobalt, nickel, lithium and graphite – are recovered as a mixed metal dust
(MMD'). Importantly, more than 90% of LIB mass is recycled, with the MMD exported to South Korea to
be further refined into feed for new LIB manufacture. The plant also generates copper, aluminum, scrap
steel and plastic, all of which are returned to the manufacturing sector.
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Through partnerships with LG Chem and Milwaukee, among others, Envirostream recently added 50 more
points to its battery collection network and is in discussions with national battery retailers regarding efficient
EOL recycling.
Lithium Australia and Envirostream are thus strongly positioned to capitalise on the rollout of a national
stewardship programme for all batteries. Scheduled for introduction in 2020, that programme comes in the
wake of Victoria's ban (July 2019) on EOL batteries being consigned to landfill.
Together, Lithium Australia and Envirostream aim to 'close the loop' on the energy-metals cycle.
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August 2020
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