The world has a lithium problem. It is not a shortage problem, but, it is a management problem.
Every year, millions of lithium-ion batteries reach the end of their useful life and disappear into landfills, scrap chains which are mostly informal and unregulated dismantling yards. On the other hand, new lithium projects are coming up all the time, in Chile, Argentina, Australia that mining companies are investing billions into, to feed the growing appetite of energy storage needs. In fact, lithium demand is projected to grow more than fourfold by 2030, according to the IEA. So essentially, we are running to dig up materials that we are throwing away.
Extraction of lithium is expensive, be it cost-wise or environmentally. Around half of the world's lithium comes from South America’s Lithium Triangle. The extraction happens by pumping brine from underground aquifers and leaving it to evaporate under the sun. It is estimated that the process consumes up to two million litres of water per tonne of lithium carbonate produced and these landscapes are mostly water stressed desert landscapes. Flamingo habitats in the area have shrunk and indigenous communities in Chile and Argentina have reported depletion of rivers and wetlands.
Aquifers deposited over a millennia, but are being drawn within years now and that is bound to have consequences. In Australia, hard rock lithium mining takes place which involves open-pit extraction, and uses energy- intensive processing that generates greenhouse gas emissions. Cobalt, which accompanies lithium in most batteries comes with a host of problems as well from water contamination, deforestation and significant human rights abuses.
These are the chinks in the supply chain of lithium ion batteries in EVs, smartphones and energy storage systems of the world. This still does not negate the case for electrification, since over the lifetime of a lithium battery, it still produces lower emissions than petrol/ diesel vehicles but it does complicate the positioning that f energy transition is inherently clean.
What recycling does
By definition, recycling lithium recovers the material. But it also does much more by bypassing the most expensive and damaging stages of lithium production entirely. There is no brine pumping or open-pit excavation, no ore transport across continents. A 2025 Stanford University lifecycle analysis found that recycling lithium-ion batteries into battery-grade materials reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than half compared to primary mining and cuts water and energy consumption to roughly one-quarter. For manufacturing scrap, the emissions are even lower at 20 per cent of mining equivalent. These represent a starkly different environmental profile for the same product.
Lithium recovered from a recycling process is as good as, or in some cases even better than lithium refined from ore. It commands the same price and can be used in the same cathodes. The next generation of batteries will not know the difference if the lithium in it has come from a recycling facility in India or a Chilean salt flat. The IEA also notes that recycling could meet up to 10 to 20 per cent of the world’s lithium needs by 2040.
In a more strategic dimension,most of the world is dependent on China for their lithium as China controls approximately 50 to 70 per cent of the world’s lithium refining (IEA). It is an extraordinary dependence on a single nation for an essential requirement like energy. For India which imports almost 100 per cent of lithium, batteries not recycled means a direct loss of materials, leaving the country to import more, at foreign exchange cost, from supply chains it does not control.
Mining more lithium is not inherently wrong but not while wasting the lithium already extracted. It is environmentally indefensible and economically irrational. Recycling is not necessarily the alternative to primary mining, but it must substitute mining to the greatest possible extent to meet the world’s lithium demand. It is part of what makes energy transition actually green. Once we understand this, we can make better choices regarding infrastructure, policy and investment, which will pave the future of the industry.
The author is Founder & Chief of Process Engineering at Metastable Materials