Acknowledgement: FOI 20669

Thank you for your request for information. We are dealing with it under
the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We have passed your request to relevant colleagues who will respond within
20 working days starting the working day after receipt of your request.

Regards
Freedom of Information Team

From: Alistair MacDonald <[FOI #981989 email]>
Sent: 18 May 2023 14:02
To: Freedom Of Information Requests Mailbox <[Newcastle City Council
request email]>
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Lithium Ion Battery Recycling

Dear Newcastle upon Tyne City Council,

Can you tell me if lithium ion batteries that are taken to the city's recycling centres are fully or partly recycled? If partly only recycled then what part of the battery is not able to be recycled and what happens to it.

This request it to help make an informed decision about the most environmentally sustainable battery choices.

Yours faithfully,

Alistair MacDonald

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[1][FOI #981989 email]

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Hello Alistair,

We apologise for the delay in you receiving a response. We have asked the
Service Area to prioritise a response and send something to yourself ASAP.

Regards

Freedom of Information

From: Alistair MacDonald <[FOI #981989 email]>
Sent: 17 June 2023 09:14
To: Freedom Of Information Requests Mailbox <[Newcastle City Council
request email]>
Subject: Re: Acknowledgement: FOI 20669

Dear Newcastle upon Tyne City Council,

Are you able to give me an update on this request please.

Yours sincerely,

Alistair MacDonald

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Dear Mr MacDonald

Thank you for your Freedom Of Information (FOI) query on lithium ion
battery recycling – Ref FOI 20669.

My response will explain why an FOI to a local authority on the detail
requested is misdirected and then, because you have asked an interesting
question, I will provide what information I have been able to find to
answer your query and give you pointers to freely available information
that might help you if you wish to research this topic further.

The requirement to provide collection of batteries and to ensure that
collected batteries are recycled falls on manufacturers, distributers and
retailers, rather than local authorities, as a producer responsibility
obligation, laid out in EU Directive 2006/66/EC, which was transposed into
UK legislation as The Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009.

Unlike multiple, more familiar, waste streams e.g. paper, glass bottles,
cans etc, local authorities have no obligation to provide for collection
and recycling of waste streams controlled by producer responsibility
legislation, such as portable batteries and Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE).

Manufacturers, distributers and retailers of portable batteries and WEEE
tend to join compliance schemes which set up and operate recycling
collections for these materials on their members’ behalf.  Local
authorities facilitate these collections by making space at their
Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) for the compliance schemes’
collection containers.

Local authorities receive data from the compliance scheme collectors on
the quantity of batteries and WEEE collected which are made publicly
available through Waste Data Flow. Local authorities receive no further
information on downstream processing of these materials and their
obligation to Waste Data Flow is to report only the quantities of
batteries and WEEE collected for recycling.

Consequently, no local authority is able to answer the question you have
asked on whether lithium-ion batteries collected from the hosted
compliance scheme’s collection containers at the local authority’s
recycling centre are fully or partly recycled because that information is
not reported to the local authority and therefore not held by it to make
available to answer requests such as this.

Producer responsibility obligations are regulated at a national level. In
the case of the UK and The Waste Battery and Accumulator Regulations 2009,
the appropriate regulator for each of the nations of the UK is detailed in
regulation 3 (2). For England and Wales, the responsible authority is the
Environment Agency and this is where your FOI request is best directed.

Details on these regulations are in the links below:

[1]EUR-Lex - 32006L0066 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)

[2]The Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009
(legislation.gov.uk)

[3]Regulations: waste batteries - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The aim of the 2006 EU Battery Directive and the subsequently transposed
UK Waste Regulations 2009 was to prevent the dispersal in the environment
of toxic heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium, which are
present in concentrated form in batteries, by establishing closed-loop
recycling for batteries to avoid their incineration or disposal to
landfill.

Three types of battery groups were identified – lead-acid, nickel-cadmium
and a catch-all category of ‘other battery wastes’ and targets were set
for rates of their collection for recycling and the efficiency of their
respective recycling processes. The focus of the recycling efficiency
targets was recycling, to the highest degree technically feasible, of lead
and cadmium.

At the time the EU enacted its 2006 Directive, Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIB)
were a small component of the waste battery stream and were placed in the
‘other waste batteries’ category. The recycling efficiency required of
this category is recycling of 50% by average weight.

In the intervening years, use of LIBs has expanded dramatically, initially
in portable consumer devices (mobile phones, tablets, lap tops) and more
recently in electric vehicles.

Reflecting this, the EU published a revision of its 2006 Battery Directive
in December 2022 which proposes new rules for the production, recycling
and repurposing of batteries, and higher collection targets and recycling
efficiencies for all battery types with additional metals targeted
including copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel, all four of which are
components of modern LIBs. Material recovery targets for lithium will be
50% by 2027 and 80% by 2031.

Whether the UK will enact its own revision of The Waste Batteries and
Accumulators Regulations 2009 is unknown. There are no LIB recycling
facilities in the UK at present, so any LIBs collected in hosted
compliance scheme battery collection systems at local authority recycling
centres in the UK are sent to Europe for recycling. Consequently,
recycling efficiencies of UK collected LIBs may increase by default as
European LIB recycling operations are mandated to achieve higher recycling
efficiencies.

The links below will take you to two, recent (2022 and 2022), freely
available, peer reviewed research articles LIB recycling:

[4]Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling─Overview of Techniques and Trends | ACS
Energy Letters

[5]Metals | Free Full-Text | Industrial Recycling of Lithium-Ion
Batteries—A Critical Review of Metallurgical Process Routes (mdpi.com)

My interpretation of these two pieces of research and the implications for
LIBs collected for recycling at Newcastle recycling centres is detailed in
the paragraphs below. I recommend you use these reviews as your own
research starting point to see if you reach a similar conclusion.

They give a comprehensive description of the components of lithium-ion
batteries, the methodologies used to recycle them, the locations (actual
and planned) of LIB recycling facilities globally and trends in LIB
recycling research which give an indication of how quickly this very
specific area of recycling is developing.

The five key components of a lithium-ion batteries are the cathode and
anode terminals, the electrolyte solution in which the terminals sit, the
physical separator between the terminals and the outer casing which holds
the components together.

Typical LIB recycling methodologies consist of mechanical,
pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical techniques which force LIB
recycling down one methodological route although some mixing of
pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical for higher recycling efficiency
is possible where larger organisations can transfer residues between
different processes in different locations.

All recycling methodologies focus on recovering the metals of the cathode,
accumulated lithium at the anode and the anode material itself, which is
usually graphite. The order of preference for metal recycling is: 
lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese and iron. There is less focus on
electrolyte, separator and casing recycling and little or no information
on how these materials are processed or disposed of.

Different mixes of metal are used in LIBs depending on the use of the
battery. The metal mix in an LIB powering a portable consume device might
typically consist of lithium iron phosphate while that of an electric
vehicle might comprise lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt. Adding to
the complexity, recycling methodologies tend to suit specific metal mixes.

Addressing your query directly, lithium-ion batteries from portable
consumer devices deposited at Newcastle recycling centres, are collected
mixed with other portable consumer batteries and brought to centralised
sorting and grading facilities in the UK where the different battery types
are extracted and sent to specific battery-type recycling processors. In
the case of LIBs, the recycling facilities used are Accurec Recycling GmbH
in Germany and SNAM in France.

Valpak, the compliance scheme whose battery collection facilities are
hosted at Newcastle recycling centres, reports that 60% to 73% of LIBs
delivered to Accurec and SNAM are recycled, well above the 50% by average
weight target set in the EU 2006 Directive and UK 2009 Regulations. The
variability in recycling is determined by the metal chemistry of the LIBs
and the recycling methodology used.

If LIB recycling technologies concentrate on capturing metals for
recycling, then the 27% to 40% of material not recycled should consist
largely of the electrolyte, separator and casing components and small
amounts of residual metals. Depending on the recycling methodology used,
residues from these materials are likely to be captured in fly ash for
disposal, if burned in pyrometallurgical processes, or sent for
waste-water treatment or disposal of chemical precipitates in
hydrometallurgical processing.

Higher recycling efficiency targets proposed in the recently published EU
revision of its 2006 Directive should increase the % recycled and reduce
the % non-recycled even more, if agreed and enacted.

[6]EU agrees new law on more sustainable and circular batteries
(europa.eu)

I hope this helps answer your query.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information

From: Alistair MacDonald <[7][FOI #981989 email]>
Sent: 18 May 2023 14:02
To: Freedom Of Information Requests Mailbox <[8][Newcastle City Council
request email]>
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Lithium Ion Battery Recycling

Dear Newcastle upon Tyne City Council,

Can you tell me if lithium ion batteries that are taken to the city's recycling centres are fully or partly recycled? If partly only recycled then what part of the battery is not able to be recycled and what happens to it.

This request it to help make an informed decision about the most environmentally sustainable battery choices.

Yours faithfully,

Alistair MacDonald

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:

[9][FOI #981989 email]

Is [10][Newcastle City Council request email] the wrong address for Freedom of Information requests to Newcastle upon Tyne City Council? If so, please contact us using this form:

[11]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/change_re...

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:

[12]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/offi...

For more detailed guidance on safely disclosing information, read the latest advice from the ICO:

[13]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/ico-...

[14]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/ico-...

Please note that in some cases publication of requests and responses will be delayed.

If you find this service useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's FOI page.

show quoted sections