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A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT – WELCOME TO THE NEW ABRI CEO AND MANY THANKS TO THE OUTGOING ABRI CEO |
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I am very pleased to announce that the Executive Committee has appointed Katharine Hole as the new ABRI CEO.
Katharine commenced working with ABRI on 20 April and brings significant experience in public policy development and implementation across the environment, infrastructure, water and energy portfolios. She has worked for over 10 years as a senior executive within the Commonwealth and NSW governments.
Of relevance to ABRI, she has worked on projects to underpin industry best practice for delivering safety, social and environmental outcomes whilst streamlining regulatory requirements for business. She has lead projects to collaboratively harmonise energy consumer protection regulations across states and territories and streamlined rules around the installation of smart meters.
Katharine will be touching base with ABRI members over the next few months. Her early priority is to look at opportunities for streamlining reporting for transportation of batteries. However, please contact her should you wish to discuss industry priorities. Katharine can be reached via email at secretariat@batteryrecycling.org.au or by phone on 0488 216 750.
I would like to thank Libby Chaplin, who has done an excellent job as our industry body CEO for the past four and half years, her successes in driving improved outcomes to increase battery recycling are commendable. ABRI would not be what it is today without her tireless efforts and I feel our entire industry is enriched by her active participation. As most of you will know, Libby has been instrumental in establishing the Battery Stewardship Council and will be a great asset to the BSC as their inaugural CEO. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Libby in her new role with the BSC and pleasingly, Libby will continue to be involved with ABRI as a member of the Executive Committee. As ABRI continues to support Libby and the BSC, I hope you saw last week’s announcement from Minister Ley of funding for the Battery Stewardship Scheme development and implementation. Woolworths also announced deployment of 1,000 household battery collection units at their stores making it is exciting times. It is fantastic to see the next steps being taken to progress battery recycling as we work hard to co-ordinate better outcomes for our industry, society, and environment.
Regards,
Ben Pritchard
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BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR STREAMLINED LITHIUM ION BATTERY RECYCLING |
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Avoiding end of life waste management for lithium ion batteries is an opportunity and challenge that needs action now. Work for the Battery Stewardship Council on the Australian market highlights these battery stocks are expected to exceed those of lead acid batteries by 2025-2026 in line with growing uptake of battery energy storage systems and electric vehicles. Stocks are projected to increase more than 300% from 24,000 in 2017-18 to 7.5 million tonnes by 2050. Currently only 10% of lithium ion batteries are collected for recycling compared with over 90% of lead acid batteries.
A streamlined, national policy and regulatory framework for recycling lithium ion batteries must be a priority. In a new report produced for the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (CRD), the CSIRO has set out policy, regulatory, research and industry development priorities to strengthen and grow Australia’s lithium ion domestic recycling capability. Importantly, this would generate new industries and employment opportunities. Download the report, The Australian landscape for lithium-ion battery recycling and reuse in 2020, below.
This challenge is arising globally as discussed in a recent BBC story which questions what will happen to all the dead batteries in electric cars. See https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56574779.
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AUSTRALIA RANKS NUMBER 2 IN TOP NATIONS PRODUCING METALS FOR THE EV BATTERY SUPPLY CHAIN |
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Australia ranks number 2 after China in the production of metals for the EV supply chain. Ranking is based on resource availability, mining capacity and refining capacity. A number of countries, notably Sweden, Argentina and Japan are investing in capacity and are rising up the ranks. This news story by mining [dot] com is based on analysis by BloombergNEF.
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NEWCASTLE, NSW LITHIUM ION BATTERY FACTORY EXPECTED TO BE OPERATIONAL BY END 2021 |
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Energy Renaissance is planning to have its lithium ion battery factory near Newcastle, NSW operational by end 2021 with plans to start constructing the $70 million battery plant at Tomago within weeks and should be operational by October.
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SAFETY - AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF BATTERIES IN THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY - ABRI GUIDELINES AND TRAINING |
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Battery safety is a critical component of battery management and recycling. Recent incidents only underscore the importance of good industry compliance and enforcement practice. ABRI has a range of general guidelines on its website for packaging and transport of batteries as well as information for consumers. ABRI also runs seminars on packaging and transport of batteries as required for industry. If you are interested in finding out more please visit our website or email secretariat@batteryrecycling.org.au.
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ADG CODE MAINTENANCE PROJECT 2021 - PROGRESS UPDATE #1 |
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The NTC has released their first progress update on the next maintenance update of the Australian Code for the transport of dangerous goods by road and rail (ADG Code). The NTC updates the ADG Code every two years to ensure it remains current and aligned with the United Nations Model Recommendations. They are currently working on the drafting of ADG 7.8.
Click the link below for a copy of the project update. An overview of the project, including timelines and a copy of the latest draft of the Code and associated documents can also be found on the project webpage
You’ll have a chance to review a more refined draft version of the Code later in the year, however, this update includes some specific issues they would like your advice on now. You can learn more about these and how to provide feedback in the update and on the webpage.
Please contact Debra Kirk, Manager Legislative Maintenance at dkirk@ntc.gov.au or 03 9236 5086 if you would like additional information.
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BIG PLANS FOR OLD EV BATTERIES |
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With battery-powered vehicles primed to become more significant in New Zealand, local work is under way to resolve one perceived environmental problem from these green machines: what to do with exhausted electric car batteries and what are the options in respect to replacement and recycling?
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HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT BECOMING AN ABRI MEMBER? |
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ABRI members are actively involved at the forefront of developments in industry and government to address the rapid expansion in the market and ensure that solutions to battery stewardship are practical and far reaching. Together, we influence policy, participate in research, facilitate trials and develop best practices to ensure that battery handling and recovery options are safe, efficient and business friendly. Our members represent the entire supply chain – importers, retailers, energy providers, recyclers, as well as government and research. We rely on member support to provide the latest information, events, best practices and industry trends. If your organisation finds these activities relevant, now is a good time to become involved.
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NORTH AMERICAN LITHIUM ION RECYCLING - NEW FACILITY IN ARIZONA |
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Li-Cycle Corp., the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America, will build its third commercial lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Arizona. When complete, Li-Cycle’s “Spoke 3” facility will be capable of processing up to 10,000 tonnes of end-of-life batteries and battery manufacturing scrap per year, bringing Li-Cycle’s total recycling capacity to 20,000 tonnes per year.
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RECYCLING BACK ON THE AGENDA |
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According to the Temora Independent newspaper, kerbside recycling could become a step closer after the NSW Local Government announced $35 million to support recycling in the state’s communities.
Over the past decade the council has looked to implement kerbside recycling several times with the last report in 2018, however the plans were abandoned due to concerns over delivery of the service, while China had effectively cut off the importing of recyclable materials from Australia. They didn’t want to give expectation that a recycling service was imminent when there was a high chance of the recycled products ending up back in landfill. This uncertainly still remains with some processed recycled material having to be landfilled due to lack of available markets for recycled goods
It is believed the new funding will not directly assist with establishing kerbside recycling services and processing centres, but will attempt to fund innovation in science, technology and manufacturing of recycling solutions.
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2021 2ND LIFE LI-ION BATTERY REUSE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE |
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After holding the International summit on Retired EV Battery summit/Global Li-ion Battery Recyclers Cooperation Summit five times in recent years, GDMMC has decided to hold the Global 2nd life Li-ion Battery Reuse Summit 2021 via the online Zoom platform. The conference will be held 3-4 June 2021.
The continued growth of electric vehicles has led to a question on its most expensive component: what happens to the battery when it reaches the end-of-life in electric vehicles? After 8 to 10 years of service in electric vehicles, those batteries are normally retired due to faded capacity and power that fail to meet the range requirement of electric vehicles. While portable lithium-ion batteries have been reused for a long time without much public attention, batteries from electric vehicles, which has become the dominant segment in the lithium-ion market, get more and more attention for its potential to be used in other applications. In Europe several vehicle manufacturers, in particular companies that pioneered the electric car market, have installed used batteries primarily in different kind of energy storage systems, ranging from small residential systems to larger containerised grid-scale solutions, in China, the EV Battery reuse market value is expected to reach 43 billion Yuan.
To find out more about this conference click the link below to visit the conference website.
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