Narrator: This is called black mass.
It's made of rare metals
recycled from lithium-ion batteries —
the kind that power most smartphones,
laptops, and electric cars.
Less than half of these ever get recycled.
Electric cars are supposed to help the planet,
but could their batteries create the next trash problem?
And why are those batteries so difficult to recycle?
The batteries from traditional, gas-powered cars,
called lead-acid batteries,
are made mostly of, well, lead.
And they're highly toxic if they end up in a landfill.
But in the US, strict laws in most states
mean that almost 100% of them get recycled.
Most electric cars, on the other hand,
use lithium-ion batteries.
They're not nearly as toxic as lead-acid batteries,
but they're much bigger.
And sometimes, lithium-ion batteries explode.
Ajay: A lot of companies have shied away, typically,
from handling the material
because of that core safety challenge.
Narrator: Li-Cycle's founders started the company in 2016
to find a safer way to deal with this waste stream
and to capitalize on a growing market.
We saw recycling as the glaring hole in the supply chain.
Narrator: Only about 5% of cars sold globally
in 2020 were electric.
And these batteries will last about 10 years.
By that time,
there could be almost 100 Eiffel Towers' worth
of used up lithium-ion batteries to recycle.
Ajay: Many people think,
"Isn't recycling just needed, like, 10 years from now?"
Narrator: And the problem is already here
in the form of leftover scrap and rejects
from battery factories.
There is a tsunami coming at us.
Narrator: And the process is the same one
used to recycle smaller batteries from phones and laptops.
One of the first steps is dumping the batteries onto tables
to shake off a flame-retardant
packing material called vermiculite.
Tim: We'll tip it up onto the first screen,
and we'll remove that vermiculite material
before it goes on to our first feed conveyor.
Narrator: Companies make batteries in different ways,
but the founders say they found one recycling method
that can handle them all.
And they can process large electric-car batteries
with almost no disassembly.
Ajay: Other groups will typically dismantle manually
to get to a cell level.
At that sort of scale of a pack,
you have potentially thousands of cells.
Narrator: Instead of that,
this system slices lithium-ion batteries
into confetti-like shreds.
Because these batteries
can catch on fire under pressure,
you can't just throw them into any old shredder.
When you crush a lithium-ion battery, say in a device,
it short-circuits.
And that short-circuiting is what can drive
a thermal event, aka fire.
Narrator: So how does Li-Cycle
shred the batteries without blowing them up?
The founders keep some of the details secret,
but a key part is the liquid that's hidden inside
this shredding system.
Tim: There's no oxygen there.
Without oxygen, there's no fires.
Narrator: That liquid also helps separate the plastic,
which most recyclers just burn away.
Tim: As the batteries are being broken up,
the low-density plastic is floating up to the top.
We separate it out, we bag it ready for our customers.
Narrator: Li-Cycle plans to have this plastic
recycled at some point,
but wouldn't tell us where it currently goes.
Machines separate what's left in the system
into two categories,
metallic foil and black mass.
Tim: So behind me, we're bagging that metallic foil,
and we sell this for the copper content,
as well as the precious metals.
Narrator: The most valuable metals are in the black mass.
Tim: Black mass contains the nickel,
the cobalt, manganese, graphite, lithium, etc.
Experts say that if current trends continue,
the world could run low on battery metals
like nickel and manganese in less than a decade.
One metric ton of black mass,
the amount in each of these bags,
is worth about $3,500.
Chemical treatments can separate the rare metals out of it,
but Li-Cycle's chemical facilities
aren't up and running yet.
So for now, it has to ship the black mass to a smelter.
Smelting uses chemicals at extremely high temperatures
to purify metals.
It requires a lot of energy and creates pollution.
This method gets nickel and cobalt from the black mass,
but the rest of it goes to waste.
Tim: They can't recover the lithium,
they can't recover the graphite,
so there's a lot of value that's left behind.
Narrator: Li-Cycle's not alone.
Most lithium-ion battery recyclers don't recover lithium.
But the founders say they're building another plant
next to this one that will recover everything.
This could reduce the need for mining,
which contributes to global warming, contaminates soil,
and can involve unethical labor practices.
Once the company is recovering all the metals,
for every ton of batteries recycled,
the founders say they will avoid five tons
of CO2 emissions that would have come
from mining new metals.
And they say recycled metals are cheaper
than mined ones, too.
This could lower the cost of electric cars,
which experts say is a good thing.
Because even though the batteries take a toll
on the environment,
electric cars are still better for the planet
than traditional ones.
Rebecca: EVs are much more efficient than they were
five, 10 years ago.
It's better for the environment
from a greenhouse-gas perspective
than driving an internal-combustion-engine car
because we've seen all these performance improvements,
both at the vehicle level and in our electricity grid.
Narrator: Right now, Li-Cycle
processes about 10,000 tons of batteries per year.
That's roughly equivalent
to about 30,000 electric vehicle
equivalent per year.
Narrator: That's a fraction
of the projected 550 million electric cars
on the road by 2040.
But it has plans to scale up
and build more recycling plants like this one,
right next to factories that make batteries.
When you scale that across the global application,
it really allows for lithium-ion batteries
to support this transition into a more sustainable future.