Articles by Peter

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard people talk about a “recycling threshold” — the idea that unless you collect a certain amount of spent batteries in a region, building or operating a recycler simply won’t pencil out. Is that true? Yes and no. There […]

Batteries are the unsung heroes of electrification. They power phones, scooters, backup systems, and increasingly the electric vehicles reshaping transport. But batteries don’t last forever. When they retire, the way we handle them will determine whether we keep valuable materials in the loop or lose […]

Batteries power our phones, cars and increasingly our grids. But what happens after they die? Traditional recycling works, but it can be energy-intensive, chemically messy, water hungry or simply unsuitable for some modern cell formats. That’s why a wave of “eco-friendly” recycling methods is emerging […]

When a lithium-ion battery reaches end of life, most of us imagine a tidy, industrial process that turns dead cells back into shiny metals for new batteries. The reality is messier. Batteries contain a mix of valuable transition metals, light elements, polymers, electrolytes and coatings […]

Have you ever wondered what happens to the battery inside your phone or electric car when it dies? Most people picture a recycling truck and a clean closed loop. In reality, whether that battery becomes a valuable source of recovered metals or ends up as […]

Have you ever thought about the tiny treasure trove sitting in your old phone or dead EV battery? Urban mining is the idea that cities and consumer waste are new “mines” — not pits in the ground but piles of discarded electronics and batteries that […]