From safe collection and material recovery to design and regulation, creating a circular economy for batteries is complex. An upcoming panel at Waste Expo Australia will dissect the challenges.
The surge in demand for lithium batteries has ignited a complex discussion within Australia’s waste management industry: how do we responsibly manage their end-of-life impact and integrate them into a circular economy?
There is no simple answer. As Alison Price, Chief Executive Officer of the Waste Recycling Industry Association Queensland (WRIQ), aptly puts it: “If there was a straightforward, linear solution, we would have solved it already.”
This sentiment underscores the challenges facing the industry, which will be a key focus of a panel discussion at this year’s Waste Expo, featuring Alison, Merrill Gray of Wolf Advisory, and Brett Lemin, Executive Director of the Waste Contractors and Recyclers Association (WCRA) of New South Wales.
Returning to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on 29 and 30 October, the expo will feature a record-breaking 140 exhibitors and attract more than 3500 industry professionals.
Sessions will, among other things, spotlight the circular economy and dive into sustainable practices, from advanced material reuse to lithium batteries.
The widespread use of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, renewable energy storage, and portable electronics has positioned them as indispensable components of modern life.
However, their use casts a long shadow, demanding a shift from a linear “take-make-dispose” model to a circular approach. For lithium batteries, this means establishing robust systems for safe collection, maximising material recovery, designing for easier disassembly, and ensuring comprehensive regulatory compliance. Each step presents its own set of hurdles. It’s these complex challenges the panel will explore.
One of the most immediate challenges is the safe collection of spent lithium batteries. Their energy-dense nature makes them a fire hazard if damaged, improperly handled, or discarded in general waste streams.
Brett says the sheer variety of products containing batteries – from children’s toys to shoes, and from computers to phones – makes public education about proper disposal a monumental task.
Batteries often end up in household bins, posing an uninsurable risk to waste and recycling facilities, with devastating financial and human costs, including severe injuries and even fatalities from battery fires in apartment buildings.
“It’s inevitable, with the current rate of fires, that we’re either going to have significant life-threatening injuries or life-changing injuries or a fatality,” he says.
It’s a stark reality that he says emphasises the urgency of addressing safe collection not just through public awareness, but through widely accessible and safe infrastructure.
Beyond collection, material recovery remains a complex challenge. Lithium batteries are intricate assemblies, and efficiently extracting valuable materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite in high-purity forms is a demanding process.
Australia currently has limited processing capacity, with only a handful of companies operating in this space.
“It’s not yet cost-effective to recycle them,” Alison says, “until there is that commercial market for battery recycling, it’s going to be really hard to even find the resources to collect the materials separately.”
Merrill Gray agrees that the small Australian market presents challenges to serious players in the business.
While black mass (a concentrate of valuable battery materials) can be processed, most is currently sent offshore. Merrill says support for downstream commercial processing options – even starting at a small scale for specific end use battery types such as e-mobility – and backing sound/derisked technology, is crucial to completing the circular loop.
She says a critical missing link in the circular economy for lithium batteries is design for disassembly.
“Many batteries are engineered for performance and cost, not for ease of end-of-life processing. This makes manual or automated dismantling labour-intensive and often hazardous.”
Promoting modular designs, simplifying material compositions, and clear labelling would streamline the recycling process, making it more economically viable. But this requires a shift in manufacturing practices, driven by collaboration between product designers, battery producers, and recyclers to embed circularity from the outset.
Finally, regulatory compliance is the linchpin that can unlock widespread change.
Brett says harmonised regulations are essential to set clear targets for collection and recycling, enforce safe handling practices, and incentivise sustainable design, however there are regulatory barriers to operating within Australia.
“From the moment you have an idea that you want to start a battery recycling process to physically being able to open the doors is at least six years in some states,” he says.
“That also requires a significant chunk of money to throw down without any certainty that you are going to have an income, or even be able to operate, in six years. There’s not a lot of appetite.”
He says New South Wales’ Product Lifecycle Responsibility Bill 2025 is a promising step, and should help create certainty, but its full impact is yet to be seen.
He stresses the importance of other states following suit to create a consistent national framework.
“If all the states align and have the same requirements, that’s going to create regulatory certainty. That’s going to create demand. And all of those will mean that we’ll have confidence in the market to be able to build the facilities that we need, but also the financial stability to pay for those facilities.”
The panel discussion at Waste Expo aims to draw attention to the issues but also tease out some of the subtleties, Alison says.
“By bringing together diverse perspectives from industry associations, advisory bodies, and practitioners, these sessions facilitate a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between technology, economics, safety, and policy,” she says.
“They provide a vital forum for sharing insights, identifying innovative solutions, and fostering the collaborative spirit necessary to tackle challenges that no single entity can solve alone.
“The open dialogue helps accelerate the adoption of new technologies, inform policy development, and ultimately, drive the industry towards more sustainable practices.”
To register, visit: www.wasteexpoaustralia.com.au
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