Detailed description

Redwood Materials is creating a circular supply chain for lithium-ion batteries, maIn partnership with one of largest non-profit organizations, Redwood Materials is working side by side with The Rotary Clubs of Nevada City and Grass Valley to offer convenient locations for community members to recycle their lithium-ion batteries. We’re excited to kick-off one of our first ‘boots-on-the-ground' consumer recycling event with the Rotary Clubs of Nevada City and Grass Valley. As part of this recycling program, we will be collecting all household items that contain a rechargeable (lithium-ion) battery. This includes old cell phones, electric toothbrushes, hair clippers, electric shavers, laptops, power tools, Bluetooth speakers, video game controllers, e-bikes, wireless headphones, and more! This program brings us one step closer to our goal of reaching a circular supply chain for all end-of-life batteries and solving the environmental impacts of new products before they happen.

Community assessment: How the project team learned about the community’s needs

The Area 4 Environmental team led by Chris Newsom, Nevada City Rotary, has been researching recycling limitations throughout the year and identified the lack of both plastics and lithium ion battery products recycling opportunities In the process, the team learned that Bay Area Rotary Clubs were partnering with Redwood Materials to host a lithium Ion recycling event. Redwood Materials is creating a circular supply chain for lithium-ion batteries, making them more sustainable and driving down the cost for electric vehicles and clean energy products. They are partnering with organizations to collect discarded products and disassembling them to salvage recyclable elements. The event was intended not only to collect the products and to collect information on the need. A short survey of each contributor was taken as they exited.

Project impact: How the project will help the community after the project ends

Redwood Materials is creating a circular supply chain for lithium-ion batteries, making them more sustainable and driving down the cost for electric vehicles and clean energy products. By developing fully closed-loop recycling for lithium-ion batteries here in the U.S., we can decrease our reliance on mining, lower the costs of clean technologies and increase the sustainability of our products.

Sustainability: How the benefits of the project will continue afterward

All lithium-ion batteries are made up of varying amounts of metals like cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium. Your smart phones, laptops and electric vehicles all have batteries made of these same metals. If Redwood Materials recovers materials from old, end-of-life products, which can be sustainably broken down to their raw metals nearly infinitely, we significantly decrease society’s reliance on newly mined materials. The largest lithium and cobalt mines in the western hemisphere can be found in the junk drawers of America and we’re on a mission to collect as many of these old products as possible to sustainably recycle, refine, and remanufacture these batteries here in America. A connection was also made with a solar panel recycling company during the drive through event.