Mercedes Opens Electric Car Battery Recycling Plant

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Mercedes-Benz inaugurated a plant for recycling electric vehicle batteries in Germany, with the luxury carmaker’s boss hailing a “key milestone” in boosting the sector’s sustainability. The plant, in the southwestern town of Kuppenheim, will have an annual capacity to recycle 2,500 tonnes of material which will feed into producing some 50,000 batteries for the group’s electric models.

The factory “marks a key milestone towards enhancing raw-materials sustainability”, said Mercedes CEO Ola Kallenius. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who attended the plant opening, said recycling was “key” when it came to EV batteries. “The circular economy is a growth engine and, at the same time, an essential building block for achieving our climate targets,” he said.

With the clock ticking on an EU deadline to phase out the sale of fossil fuel-burning cars by 2035, there is a growing focus on producing and recycling electric car batteries in the bloc. As well as reducing waste from EVs, recycling is seen as important to boost European sovereignty in the batteries sector, as materials such as cobalt, nickel and lithium mainly come from outside the region.

Courtesy: www.wasteadvantage.com