Wornout Battery Environmental Impact and Recycling

[Kaivball]

By the time the batteries have spent ten plus years in a Tesla and then twenty five years in a Solar City home there will be a lot more batteries to recycle, which will easily justify recycling plants. I'm not seeing this as a big problem--it's far less of a problem than the catalytic converters in an ICE car. Batteries have been recycled for longer than any other product and I don't see this changing.

You still have to overall cost of recycling versus the value of the ingredients to address.

It's just not profitable... Today.

 

[Jason]

I am sure this will go the way of other things - like cat's on ICE's. Years ago the muffler shops had to pay to get them removed, and some people realized the market and would haul them off for free.
Today drop by any muffler shop and they will tell you they have guys that come by and pay them 50 to 300 CASH per converter
for the platinum and palladium inside...

Or RBRC that heads up the collection of all rechargeable batteries from retailers - I'm sure you have seen the bins when you go into Best buy, Home Depot, etc...

Or take a look at Prius packs - there is a whole secondary refurb market that popped up where they repair the packs, none of them are getting wasted.