159 - Revolutionizing Battery Recycling – Innovation, Challenges and Way Forward with Li-Cycle

Join us on a fascinating journey with Ajay Kochhar, the CEO and Co-founder of Li-Cycle, in our latest episode of Insider's Guide to Energy. In this enlightening conversation, Ajay dives into the critical role of battery recycling in the global shift towards renewable energy. As the head of a leading lithium-ion battery recycling company, Ajay sheds light on Li-Cycle's innovative approach to recovering precious materials like lithium, nickel, and cobalt from all types of rechargeable batteries. 

Discover how Li-Cycle is tackling the pressing global problem of spent lithium-ion batteries, transforming them into valuable resources for new battery production. This process not only addresses a significant waste management issue but also plays a crucial role in the supply chain for critical battery components. Ajay discusses the environmental and economic advantages of battery recycling, emphasizing how this practice contributes to a circular economy and aids in the reduction of reliance on primary mining. 

Learn about the technical innovations and challenges faced in the battery recycling industry, including the development of bespoke, non-thermal recycling methods that are both economically viable and environmentally friendly. Ajay elaborates on the future of energy storage, highlighting the increasing importance of battery recycling in a world that is heavily reliant on energy storage for sustainable growth. 

Gain personal insights into Ajay's journey in the renewable energy sector, from his roots in primary mining and refining to leading a revolutionary recycling company. He shares the story behind Li-Cycle's inception, its motivation, and its vision for a sustainable future. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, sustainability, and the global energy transition. 

Tune in to this episode of Insider's Guide to Energy for an in-depth look at how Li-Cycle is driving innovation and sustainability in battery recycling, shaping a more environmentally friendly future. 

Transcript

00:00.00
Chrissass
Thanks for joining us insiders! This is Insiders Guide to Energy host, Chris Sass, and I am excited to share that we are having an episode where we interview Ajay Kochhar, CEO of Li-Cycle. You're going to hear a lot of interesting things, in-fact I didn't know before this episode that 10% of batteries really don't make it to full delivery. They end up on the recycling pile. You're going to find out more, so let's dive in. Ajay, Welcome to the show.

03:29.51
Ajay Kochhar
Okay. Thanks Jeff and Chris and and great to be on so let me start with a bit of Li-Cycle really briefly and I'll talk a bit about the industry so we're a lithium I am battery recycling company. We take all types of rechargeable lift. My batteries think of the smallest you can like a battery in your smartwatch. All up to the biggest you can you know even heavy duty trucks that are increasingly getting electrified and everything in between and we recover the critical materials within so lithium nicole cobalt I really think about these as the building blocks of new liftft my batteries and also the energy transition. Zooming out. You know why is this important? Um, you know our transition to renewable energy is very reliant on on storage lith my batteries are a large part of the equation there especially from mobility applications and lift. My batteries are very intensive from a need for critical. Materials be it. Lithium could be nickel could be cold. So really think about Lithmine Battery recycling as the future urban mine for getting these materials moving away from primary mining and moving towards recycling resource recovery.

04:47.72
Ajay Kochhar
Maybe 1 last stat to provide you know by 2040? Globally you know we're looking at about 30000000 tons of material that needs to be recycled from lift my batteries that are both dead and also from making a batteries and that's worth about $110000000000 in terms of the total addressable market so to frame up both the challenge but also the opportunity this is really important for the energy transition and electrification and conversely is a very big opportunity as a new market.

05:21.40
chrissass
So what happens today to a lithium batteryter so lithium I am batteries aren't new. We've had laptops in in small electronics using. Um so when I take my battery to the recycling center does it get recycled today and does it go back into product or what's different between what you're talking about doing at scale than what's happening today.

05:38.70
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah, so historically with my batteries are really perceived as a waste and I'd say in our world today. We were started 2016 and so when we started the company that was kind of the pervasive sort of thought today I'd say it shifted quite a bit nonetheless. You know, um. And maybe to Fram it up. You know, let's find batteries. We really think about it in 4 broad categories and Chris you're talking about 1 of those categories which is you know consumer electronics and appliances. That's certainly one of the streams that comes to us also think about just to help frame the conversation you know electrification so evs and the like. Ah, third category which is important is manufacturing scrap. So as you make batteries. It's not perfect and then also stationary storage number four so could be residential could be utility so back to your question Chris did what happens is frankly for consumer appliances and batteries not very good collection rates. You know North America were probably about 5 to 20% depending over you are collection rates. So first off they may not even go to recycling I think we all have the proverbial drawer at home of devices and potentially batteries. And if it does go to recycling what's been historically the case is often export for those batteries or treatment of them through thermal recycling which is really where groups have been after nickel and cobalt but you lose lithium that way so that's not very economically advantageous nor is it frankly, environmentally.

07:06.88
Ajay Kochhar
Very friendly. So what we're doing is non-thermal and it's really bespoke for with my batteries not trying to be a generalist recycling facility for metals If you.

07:19.94
Jeff McAulay
Ajay, You mentioned environmental friendliness. So when you compare the Urban mine to conventional mining. What are the the metrics that matter and how do you compare on an expense or energy emissions intensity.

07:34.12
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah, maybe we tackle itt two is 1 on co two for print from a lifecycle perspective and then also on economics. So from a C O two footprinted perspective and often what's happening with their customers like the vehicle oems or even sawmakers very focused on the ultimate co 2 forprint of the battery in the vehicle. And hence the overall footprint of the ev and the battery is a large part of the footprint for co 2 for for a vehicle in ev so the big, the big metric and what we can enable through recycling is about a 2 thirds reduction of the c o 2 footprint of the battery within the ev. And that's a big deal because often a big knock against evs is well you have to drive them certain amount of distance before you start getting across a tip over point where you're actually creating a benefit in terms of the overall emissions reduction and so that's. Really big benefit and that's why there's such a big focus on you know, recycled material coming into new to your batteries which can help reduce that footprint substantially economically of course this has to work economically and from our founding that was always one of the core tenets. We can't be reliant on. For example, government subsidies. Ultimately, that's a cost passed on to the consumer and so the good news is with my batteries on like other recyclable verticals have a lot of valuable material and that is the real driver of economics. So we have main revenue drivers from lithium from nickel from cobalt compared to mining.

09:08.16
Ajay Kochhar
Often You have for example Lithium I They only have one revenue Stream. For example, Lithium You don't find Lithium with nickel and covalt in the crust. So we're economically off the bat advantaged and the way to really tap into that is the way that you process you have to make sure it's scalable low cost. And some of the environmentally friendly aspects tie in because you can process smarter and better environmentally which helps from an economic perspective.

09:36.52
Jeff McAulay
That's great and what percentage of the battery materials whether that's Lithium or cobalt or or magds what percentage are you able to recover in the recycling process.

09:45.35
Ajay Kochhar
And that links also back to your prior question about like what's different about what we do. So historically one of the big metrics is recovery or recycling efficiency rate the latter is basically a measure of how much mask goes in versus how much mass goes out and back to the Economy. So historically some of those thermal methods may have a recycling efficiency rate of about 50% 60 through what we do both spoke and hub we can enable. You know up to a eighty even potentially ninety plus percent recycling efficiency rate. That's just on a pure mass basis like what comes in what was that back to the economy. And then on a recovery basis. Okay, so people say hey how much how much lithium comes in how much goes back in the lithium product or nickel or cobalt. That's where we can enable up to 95% historically nickel and cobalt would be maybe net net sixty seventy percent recovery through historical methods. And lithium historically has not been recovered actually through recycling with my batteries and that's a key aspect of our economics lithium's a large part of the value even though lithium prices oscillate and they've come down recently. It's still an important contributor to the overall economic coal. Plus a nickel plus the cobalt.

11:00.80
Jeff McAulay
Um, is there a good.

11:01.72
chrissass
Yeah, how advanced are we? at this point right? So that I get that you can get a lot of material back but you need inputs So where you're getting all these batteries to do this Urban mining or getting the things back in the cycle right? because we need to still get it initially from the earth.

11:17.62
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah, and I think that's ah, that's a great and classic sort of perspective rate. So I think most people may think recycling you think end of life. You think spent batteries. You think evs have gone the road need to come back and certainly we've accepted a lot of ev batteries from the road. Um, the thing that's missing in. I think from a public perspective is when you make batteries. It's not perfect and you generate a level of manufacturing scrap or rejects like most manufacturing processes. No manufacturing process is perfect I always draw a bit of an analogy. You know the stamping industry for stamping of panels for example in the autovoto space. Even today has you know a level of offcuts and rejects which could be you know, 5% you know, maybe potentially more depending on the plant. So very similarly making a batteries you get? you know? for example, making a cathode or the end of caho's a positive terminal and as a negative terminal. These are long sheets of material from which they cut out to size. What's going to go in the battery you get natural geometry driven off cuts. So that's an example of manufacturing scrap as they test the batteries all along the way from a constituent of the battery cell all the way to a cell to a pack. There's rejects high quality bar. No one wants recall no one wants something to have have happened to those batteries when they go in the economy. So again, that's a level of manufacture scrap. So all in all, that's about 10% on average. We see of what goes into making a battery often comes in as some level of scrap.

12:50.11
Ajay Kochhar
And you can imagine as you make a lot of batteries that's quite a bit of scrap and that's the reason that we've been building out um and expanding in the near term. So. There's a great market I'd say this decade driven by manufacturing scrap and really the next decade market so say twenty thirty and beyond. Will be really driven by what I think people rationally think about which is end of life and the life matters.

13:14.96
Jeff McAulay
Does recycled material count as domestic content for the Ev incentives.

13:24.43
Ajay Kochhar
It does yes, it does in short and so that's why there's been an even further focus on recycled material domestically save within the us and I'll see you where I think you're referring Jeff to the ira and some of the requirements for the $7500 tax credit. Um. The interesting kind of juxtaposition of that is in the us today take lithium as an example, whether it be for mining or recycling the us today is about a 5000 ton per year Lithium carbonate producer. Keep in mind today. The lithium carbonate market globally is about a million tons so really we're a massive. North America even a massive disproportionate consumer versus producer. So from our cycling perspective. You know as we think about our first refining facility producing about Eight Thousand Eight Thousand five hundred tons of lithium carbonate. That's actually quite impactful. And so it's quite impactful from an overall market perspective and secondarily your point Jeff it will count towards those domestic credits in terms of getting this $8500 credit.

14:28.40
Jeff McAulay
Quick follow up. Can you just put that in context so in 2024 the percentage of new ev batteries by mass will be 5 % recycled content and then by 2030 it might be. 20 you know what help help us out with ah today and then maybe a steady state.

14:47.17
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah, so today the main recycled content you see in batteries is really nickcoline cobalt and so of the nickelon Cobaltton maybe a couple of percent maybe today and lithium typically not today because there hasn't been much lithium recovery. From both my batters you're go to twenty thirty I'd say you know recycling can be about you know, maybe 10% 15% of the overall demand for lithium nicocobalt as an industry and that may not sound like a lot but you're dealing with the backdrop even despite near-term oscillations of. Demand which you kind of need to ignore on a long term basis. Ah, that's quite a bit right? Give millet and market that's growing potentially 20% year 30% a year ten fifteen percent of that from nothing really is quite a bit and then I fast forward even further to 2040 and beyond. Then there's potential for us to be as an industry you know 30% 40% 50% of the demand from recycled material and then you really start to be very impactful. A long-term basis.

15:54.80
Jeff McAulay
Hit.

15:56.69
chrissass
So when you get that big I Guess how much energy is used in the process you you talked a little bit about the process and the opening comments here. How how ah how much energy intensity is involved in in converting this.

16:09.50
Ajay Kochhar
Yes, it depends on this is where they you get into the technology and it depends on how you're recycling so some methods of recycling are relatively energy intense some of those historical methods I refer to like thermo recycling now it could be like metallurgic coal. Coal that's being used to create the thermal energy but nonetheless quite a bit of energy needed to run a furnace for example or run a kiln um, still frankly, speaking on a net net basis still benefit probably from a C O 2 perspective depending on what you're recovering, but the way to make that. Even. Better and this is what lifecycle does is. In summary, we have regional facilities that are shredding facilities where we take in the batteries. We convert them from being a battery or could even be a waste into a product. And 1 of the main products out of that is something called black mass which is the cathode and material so that process is mainly shredding. It's a submerged process. Not a of energy to be used I'm talking like ah not even a megawatt of power usage safer per site so way less than that typical quick. That's kind of the first step. But what we do. We have 4 of those facilities operating today and then at the hub. So we call it a spoke spoken hub model think of it like a wheel rev reverse logistics and then the hub is where we refine. That's a wet chemistry process again nonthermal ah not very energy intenses.

17:41.48
Ajay Kochhar
We're less than a twenty Megawatt load you to give an example for that facility. We're in the old Kodak Business Park there's a utility in the park. We're a relatively small load for them for that utility. So not that energy attends yet again, but you can imagine depending on what you're doing if you're running a big furnace. Okay, well maybe he reoan energy Attes. So then the devil is in detail on the style of of processing really and in our case, it's not that energy tense.

18:10.60
Jeff McAulay
Would you ever supply preprocess materials to others or is it vertically integrated from a supply chain perspective.

18:18.57
Ajay Kochhar
Um, that's great. Great point and we we today do sell our black mass that Kaine and of material. Um, why it's called black mass why it just appears like a black powder. It's a very creative engineer I swear an engineer came up with the.

18:34.12
Ajay Kochhar
But anyways yesterday today we do sell that blackmas to third parties we sell it through our offtake and marketing partners. There's not a huge It's a growing market. But there's not a huge market yet for that to be consumed the traditional way. It's been consumed as I was basically outlining. There has been going into that. Nickel industry. Basically so it's been used as an additive to get more nickelling cobalt as part of nickel processing. Basically the downside of that is you don't get the lithium and that's what we've been looking to change so short answer is yes we can definitely sell to third parties. But the real vision here is to be vertically integrated to go back to the battery materials and why um is really twofold. 1 There's a lot more value in that. So from an overall financial perspective. That's the key strategic change if you will and second from a. Close loop perspective when you think about an autoem or a battery maker. Increasingly what's happening is they're saying okay I have this scrap or in the future I'll have these endoflife batteries under warranty I as in them would ideally like the material back. So I want to give it to you and then I want to pro ratto amount of those metals back ideally because then I can offset as the oe or they can offset the amount that they need to purchase from a mind source. So if you think about that it's like okay well if you're producing black mass. They don't consume black mass.

20:05.82
Ajay Kochhar
But they do they do direct sourcing for example for lithium or for Nico Coba products so that's a large part of the strategy in terms of how do we really enable for our customers.

20:15.76
chrissass
So does that change the dynamics of either vehicle ownership or storage ownership then longer term do I actually own those minerals or do I lease those minerals What? what happens long term.

20:28.45
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah, so ever since I started this in my myself. My co-finunder since or this business at 2016 this is the question. We've been asked a lot. Ah and I think for the first time in the last couple of years we're seeing business models that actually enable that so to give you an example least. Battery packs in vehicles right? This is ah quite a common model even in in Asia even europe to an extent. We see some trying to come with it to North America so the purpose of that model in part is to retain access if you will to those battery minerals after they've. You know, really c ovm taking on the risk right? That's passed on the consumer for the purchase of those minerals at that time at that price. So ideally by not selling it. You kind of locked in your risk exposure as the oem and then you could potentially bring it back and recycle. So that's one way we're practically seeing that manifested. In the market. The second way we're practically seeing that manifested in the market is what I was covering there on this whole closed loop concept. So one of the future potentials for us which has a readthrough for consumers whether it be in stationary storage or even in evs. Is recycling as a service and so what we're hearing from a lot of our customers as I was saying there on the o side is even 1 step further. Not only do I want to pro out on out of the nickel lithian cobalt that I give you but frankly I may want to own those materials all the way through your chain.

22:02.83
Ajay Kochhar
And so recycling as service Ras is our a lifecycle take on saas or that recycling industry. Um, and we've taken a cue from say the the industrial gas business where you know you kind of have ah potentially a fixed fee model you know to to have a reservation fee. And then a variable fee which is driven by usage because sometimes in the recycling industry. It's kind of hard to predict how much comes out for a manufacturing scrap for other places so that's the future of where we'd like to go and it lends right into that model of the ownership of the materials.

22:37.65
chrissass
So kind of a quick follow up. Um, do you envision then that there'd be a premium on the recycled um product since it's perhaps better for the environment and less impactful.

22:48.57
Ajay Kochhar
Um, yeah, we we don't that's in the one side from an economic banking perspective. We don't really rely on that but on the flip side. There are a lot of drivers. Why there could be and should be a premium. Um, you know. And I'll kind of divide up to North America and Europe briefly North America you have I'd say the incentive structure through the ira for more domestic content for more recycled material through things like the production tax credit so you could see you know flow through of that $7500 evie credit. Backwards potentially onto the materials and that could be part of the justification for our premium in europe um, it's even more prescriptive I would say so there are in the battery regulation. That's now live and active. There are minimum requirements for recycled content and batteries. There are big expectations on the recovery of materials through recycling so in that market environment. You could see even more reason for printing for recycle material.

23:51.66
chrissass
Now last followup because when you were saying that what comes to mind is you know Ev batteries only so a certain amount yet used rev and then they get upcycled into perhaps storage or something else does this change the model of how long we tend to keep a battery in cycle like when does the battery become.

24:09.28
Ajay Kochhar
Um, yeah.

24:11.25
chrissass
Ah, candidate for recycling as opposed to just going into a warehouse to be used for long-term storage or some other use.

24:16.60
Ajay Kochhar
And we've seen a big oscillation on that right? between this desire and for reuse being first before recycling and I'd say broadly speaking for industry if it can be reused and great. Well we we'll support that there's no no reuse for recycling versus recycling issue. But from a customer perspective I think what's driving that frankly is the cost of new batteries and so as we've seen the price of commodities come down recently. It has a direct flow through to the price of new batteries and if that battery is going to be reused. Basically whoever may be as a counterparty. They're going to have to be juggling. Okay, while how much does that use battery garner versus a new battery and is there an economic case there and once but a time there was a big case right? say you're like a thousand dollars a kilowatt hour probably ten plus years ago okay yeah that's very valuable. Want to reuse that. But today if you're in around this hundred dollars kilowat less from a cell perspective that equation may not stack up as well. So that's one part of it and then secondly lastly on that is the desire to get the access to the critical materials. Um, it's been such a big focus for folks and. Desire to get back into new batteries. We're also seeing that plane a lot into the customer psyche around. Do you reuse and delay the access to those critical materials.

25:42.79
Jeff McAulay
There's an additional dimension of the battery chemistry too. So you've mentioned cobalt and manganese and there's a lot of trends now maybe away from Ncm and towards lfp it sounds like because you're able to recover the lithium. You might be more agnostic to changing chemistry is that right? or or does that matter.

26:01.80
Ajay Kochhar
Took the words on my mouth. Jeff yeah, exactly. So we're agnostic to to chemistry and I think there's been 2 approaches in the recycling market that I've seen one is there are some facilities that I've been to an Apac Asia Pacific where they only take for example, a particular type of and Nmc chemistry. Like Nmc 6 2 2 or Nmc a m o one. That's all they want and that is 1 approach but then you're highly reliant on that manufacturing scrap stream which could very much change right in a pretty short order our approach vice versa because we're investing in ideally long lived assets. You know. Benchmark with the metallurgical industry where some of the most successful businesses are the ones of the most versatile so they able to take the biggest gamut of material. Um, you know, still optimized within that might be flexible right? especially in a market that continues to change. So short answer is yes we take ah lfp batteries. We recycle them today. We can get the lithium from them. It is valuable for us for others. However, that have a different approach and may not be and I think that's going to be an industrywide sort of challenge that we need to continue to address regardless of the shifts in chemistry. It's a pretty challenging thing. As a recycler. What.

27:17.66
Jeff McAulay
So what other top level challenges are you seeing for the industry and trends if you have to think out more towards 2030 where is this industry headed.

27:29.10
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah I'll I'll split it into 3 Um first is just I'll just launch off that chemistry point for a moment. Go a little bit deeper on that that is quite a challenge as a recycler because you're dealing with we're dealing with. New chemistries out of Manufacturers crap and old chemistries for the spent Batteries. So any given moment that feed to us can be quite variable and so the way we've dealt with is that our spokes are highly agnostic their mechanical system at the hub level what it means is we need to have and we do have. Ah, broad gamut of customers so we could be kind of managing composition of blackmass but that is a challenge right? and I think what's been very interesting to watch on this slide is ah as as commodity prices move sometimes it could be for performance reasons. But sometimes it also causes the battery chemistry strategy to oscillate. For our customers and so that means you could have very short lives and strategies for some of these chemistries just bottom lines have to be agnostic and flexible. The second is briefly is form Factor. So we've seen not only the chemistry but at a pack level. You know Tesla C Tl Others B I d. Gone to these very integral designs where he basically sells in a pack sell the pack architecture and when you start layering on adhesives and things that make it hard for the packs to be dismantled. There are fewer and fewer homes for those packs to go. We take them because we can tread full packs without discharging or dismantling.

29:02.73
Ajay Kochhar
But I would say we don't see many outlets for that. It's advantage for us. But as an industry as the pack construction continues to evolve. It has implications for who can take it and actually recycle it and then the last point I just make is the the really challenging part of the whole build out here I mean the spokes are. Lot of smarts there the lower capital and quicker. It's really the refining side know we see a lot of refining in China even Korea but North America and Europe have lacked with respect to the build of refining for these materials, especially from black mass and so that is a challenge. As an industry in North America and Europe we have to keep up and keep up in something that's more capital intensive longer lead more sophisticated. You need technology. So we're tackling that challenge but there needs to be a bunch of us doing it.

29:54.60
chrissass
So so you just gave a a great explanation of of the challenges and and in the the kind of everm movinging target of of the industry you going for? Um I guess as you keep talking about black mass and things like that. How does 1 ne's personal journey. Go hey I want to deal with black mass and and solve this this recycling problem. How did you get here.

30:14.82
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah, and it it did I learned about blackmas subsequently. So ah, it really started with the critical materials I actually came from with Tim my co-founder from the primary mining refining particularly refining industry. So I used to work in lithium and nickel and cobalt now. Um. This is now almost thirteen years ago but you know at that time you know we were working Nicola and copper and the like and yeah, so happens. All those things are now euton batteries long. But at that time there wasn't a lot of that industry for batteries. But the new and very battery specific material was lithium and so we spent a lot of time. Was at a firm named hatch which is an engineering firm. We were building facilities. Basically for clients Tim my cofounder we spent a lot of time building the lithium practice at Hatch and so after a couple of years of doing that and it was a very It's been like various additions if you will of lithium I call that lithium 1.0 <unk>s probably like lithium 2.0 and like 201516 we just had lithium three point zero and probably gonna enter four point zero in a bit so the markets gone through these various oscillations. So probably between one point zero and two point zero. We were increasingly wondering. Okay well. Okay, we're working with these clients they're gonna produce lithium it's going to go in batteries. look at alubanum we look at copper there's pretty pretty mature recycling industries. But what's going to happen for lithium and then we dug in. We found out what I was mentioning there on the thermal side. Oh wow geez even when they co for recycling the batteries today like he can't even get thelithium. Well, that's kind of crazy I mean how is that supportive of a.

31:48.80
Ajay Kochhar
Sustainable industry so that was really the start of it and then through the journey this whole spoken. How model that we iterated with our customers. We've had to learn a lot and develop a lot of acumen on the preprocessing side. Even they're saying logistics and like so went from there but started with the critical materials.

32:05.18
chrissass
Um, can kind of an ah amazing journey I Guess as you're describing all the the chemistry and all the industries. Do you get? ah a not in my backyardense when you go to a city and want to come in are people afraid that you're going to be doing something toxic or scary when you're proposing a new location.

32:21.68
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah I think lets my batteries in general have a bit of ah a stigma right against them and and I think we've seen it right in in public now the key to that is then what do you do? How do you process? um. And so what we do talking about the non-thermal step. It's good for us. Economically it's good for us from a customer perspective and it's also good from a permanent perspective. So we've permitted now 5 spoke facilities and having that track record is helpful but also not doing something that spews a bunch of pollutants into the air. To have neighbors is very important right? to not have that sort of reaction. So that's on the spoke side and frankly conversely when we've seen facilities that have thermal treatment there have been challenges with permiting for some of our peers so it kind of tells you. Where it can go and then secondly and lastly on the hubside. That's a chemical process for us. That's it very common with this book site. It's a lot of clear communication engage early and often and explain what we're doing because this industry is very technical. Um and I'm an engineer so I often have to make sure I'm trying not to use too much jargon than the like. But try trying to make it 1 relatable but to get people comfortable that we're not going to do something here. That's gonna be net negatives can be that positive.

33:41.43
chrissass
And moving forward for audience and listeners. Um, what's your advice to them about figuring out how the recycling and lifecycle of their battery is going to take place What what should they be doing to pay attention.

33:51.13
Ajay Kochhar
Yeah I think everyone can play a part here means it's you know difficult unless you're working at of e om or a cell maker where you can have a big role if you're say vulnerable recycling. But as an individual consumer. You know how do we play role. Well we all have. Ah, range of devices and appliances that have lift my batteries and we potentially all have a collection of those and so what I'd encourage is there are different programs. We work with a whole range of groups on this front I'll give you 1 example, call to recycle. There's also others that are electronic waste recyclers that do this essentially their pale programs. You can go to your local home depot or couldy staples Office Depot whatever maybe and they often have a box where you can drop off your device or even your batteries that's a way to get it back in the supply chain and then those groups will pass it on to ah a certified group such as us and that's a way to get your. Above ground cobalt lithium it could be nickel into the electrification supply chain as we build these domestic supply chains.

35:09.13
Ajay Kochhar
So.

35:09.19
Jeff McAulay
Thank you For being a part of this discussion today! This has really been a tremendous discussion. You helped me understand how recycling fits into a circular economy in this critical sector of batteries for all sectors including evs. Thank you so much.


35:29.81
Ajay Kochhar
Thank you Jeff and thank you Chris, and I just say the message to leave folks with is when you hear somebody say evs are polluting bad for the environment and to end up in a toxic landfill just know that that won't be the case because there's a lot of valuable materials in there and it's right business decisions for environmental decisions. To close a loop as part of a circular economy. So thank you! both.

35:53.74
chrissass
Ajay, that was a fantastic conversation for our audience. We hope you've enjoyed this content as much as we did making it. We look forward to seeing you again on the insider's guide to energy podcast. We'll talk to you soon. bye bye.