Electronics recycler ERI and Redwood Materials are partnering on both battery and solar panel recycling. Redwoods Materials, co-founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, is dedicated to handling e-waste responsibly.
“ERI and Redwood Materials working together signals a unique, unprecedented partnership that will tackle the ‘last mile’ of electronic recycling: solar panels and batteries,” said John Shegerian, ERI’s Co-Founder and Executive Chairman. “And it will be done in a radically transparent, end-to-end closed-loop manner where elements – from cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium – will be kept out of landfills, responsibly recycled, and put back into new products.”
“Redwood is focused on steadily and relentlessly improving recycling economics with technology to reduce the cost of materials and create a circular supply chain to power a sustainable future,” said Straubel, Redwood Materials CEO. “By partnering with ERI, we’ll be able to ensure the largest supply of e-waste batteries in the U.S. is recycled into materials to build new EVs and clean energy products.”
According to Forbes, Redwood will receive up to 30 tons of lithium batteries collected by ERI each week. Redwood is also starting a pilot program to recover materials from solar panels collected by ERI.
Redwood currently operates two processing facilities in Nevada, focused on batteries.
I’d like to get your take on recycling. As I understand of all of those recycle triangles usually on the bottom of a bottle tells one what plastic it’s made of, some of the plastics are cheaper to produce than to recycle. Do you think if your operation had solar PV panels installed as roofs over storage areas and processing lines, if the savings in electricity would allow more recycled product in the long term? There are government grant programs like the Levy Ready Grants program, there are ‘Green Banks’ where one can get better rates for energy efficiency products. Basically if you could squeeze more recycled products from the waste stream you have coming in now, by getting rid of the electricity costs in your overhead.
You might try and contact Redwood Materials and see if you can’t get an opportunity to view their operations in Nevada and see how they do this. Try the National Waste & Recycling Association and see what they say about this.
I am so interested in learning more about this. I’ve been in the recycling Buisness for 32 years and our Company has been in the Buisness for over 100 years mainly recycling paper,occ,news plastics ect…this would be a new venture for us. Our plants are right at the Norfolk Va pier and also have facilities that ship out of Baltimore and New York. It would be most grateful if someone could head me in the right direction of where to start pursuing this. Opportunity. Kind regards, Beth Willis Butler Paper Recycling