LG and Toyota to Open a Battery Recycling Plant in America

­LG Energy Solution & Toyota are teaming up to build an American battery recycling center. The companies plan to establish a joint venture called joint venture called Green Metals Battery Innovations, with the goal of opening a pre-processing plant in North Carolina.

Many such solutions are sorely needed – with the mass proliferation of portable devices (and especially with the unquestioned supremacy of lithium-ion batteries), e-waste has become a serious concern.

The stats are sobering – according to Alianza Recycling and Recovery, America dumps from 300-400 million electronic items per year, but less than 20% of those items are recycled. And here’s the kicker – while e-waste is only 2% of total trash, it’s a full 70% of overall toxic waste!

And it’ll only get worse – with the automotive world converting wholesale to electric, lithium-ion batteries (and their mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel and silver) will literally pile up, and we could have a looming environmental disaster on our hands.

The pre-processing plant has a maximum goal of 13,500 tons of scrap (the equivalent of 40,000 car batteries) annually, and initially, LG Energy Solutions will supply scrap from the production of EV batteries for Toyota Motors.

“This joint venture will not only help secure a stable supply of key battery materials but also enhance the competitiveness of our recycling business in North America,” said Chang Beom Kang, CSO of LG Energy Solution. “We are fully committed to leading the recycling market through innovative and differentiated technologies.”

The plant is scheduled to be operational by 2026.