Attero Recycling Private Limited plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years to develop lithium-ion battery recycling plants in Europe, the US and Indonesia amid the metal surge and global shift to electric cars.

CEO and Co-Founder of Attero Recycling, Nitin Gupta, told the media that there is a tremendous amount of lithium-ion battery waste available for us to recycle.

He said that by 2030, 2.5 million tonnes (mt) of lithium-ion batteries would reach the end of their life, and currently, there is a capacity for only 0.7 mt of battery waste to be recycled.

He added that lithium-ion batteries are becoming universal because of their use in consumer electronics and electric vehicles (EVs).

Recycling used batteries will be crucial for supplying lithium, which poses a global shortage switch to clean energy through EVs. As lithium supply fails to meet the demand, the prices of batteries are rising sharply.

Such higher battery costs may make EVs unaffordable for the masses and for value-conscious markets like India, which is already lagging behind major nations like China in making the switch.

Gupta said that Attero, with a $1 billion investment, is seeking to recycle more than 300,000 metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) of lithium-ion battery waste by 2027.

One facility in Poland will begin operations by the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022, while a plant in Ohio might be up and running by the third quarter (Q3) of 2023. A plant in Indonesia should be functional by the first quarter (Q1) of 2024.

The expansion plan will help Attero cater to over 15% of the world’s demand for cobalt, lithium, graphite and nickel.

He added that Attero recycles all types of old lithium-ion batteries and exports the output to gigafactories manufacturing battery cells outside of India. The company mainly extracts critical metals like cobalt, nickel, lithium, graphite and manganese.

Mining these metals can result in environmental and social damage. Gupta said that extracting one tonne of lithium requires 500,000 gallons of water.

It has major clients in India, including Hyundai Motor Company, Tata Motors Limited and Maruti Suzuki India Limited.

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