Battery makers are powering a circular economy

How Battery-makers are powering a circular economy

A virtuous circle

The Economist Oct 27th 2022

Excerpts:

"Manufacturing is a one-way business. Raw materials go into a factory and finished products come out"

"In only 50 years the world’s consumption of raw materials has nearly quadrupled, to more than 100bn tonnes"

"Less than 9% of this is reused, resulting in a big waste of materials."

"Being new, most gigafactories are designed with recycling in mind from the start"

"Northvolt, a Swedish battery-maker, aims by 2030 to produce 150gwh of batteries—enough to power some 2m evs—from the three gigafactories it is completing. By then, around half its raw materials should come from recycling old batteries"

"Renault reckons around 85% of a car is recyclable, but only 20-30% of the materials in new vehicles are recycled, often from other goods. Circular manufacturing would greatly increase that share."

"Could other industries do something similar? Fast fashion is a notoriously wasteful business in which little-worn clothes are burnt or dumped"

"Consumer electronics is another business that creates heaps of waste"

"Fortunes could yet be made in the urban mining of last year’s gadgets and yesterday’s togs."