Sustainable Lithium Cells Australia PTY LTD

Basic Information

Applicant Type: Organisation

Organisation Name: Sustainable Lithium Cells Australia PTY LTD

Main Questions

Problem Solution

Reducing the amount of consumer household battery product, particularly those with embedded batteries, from entering waste bins.

Using a straight forward, openly replicable approach, we can incentivise businesses to take responsibility for encouraging consumers to return EOL products to consolidation points for us to collect, most obviously, the place where they were purchased from. We do this with financial, SEC and RnD benefits.

The general recycling industry and government consensus is that product suppliers should take responsibility/stewardship for the safe disposal of products they bring to market. But suppliers are de-incentivized to do this due to prohibitive additional costs, leaving the disposal fees in the hands of their unaware and unwilling consumers (often with return and recycling information hidden in the small print).

Our company is experienced in the efficient and cost positive dismantling and resource recovery of lithium batteries and the products powered by them. The technology required for this is not advanced and does not need to be, however, it does require experience in methodologies, custom tooling and understanding various product designs. These are the skills we have been honing over the last 4 years of operation, which have allowed us to be the only providers of completely free or otherwise the most discounted recycling providers to many businesses in Australia that have already taken it upon themselves to reconsolidate (often cheaply through reverse logistics) their EOL products.

What is in it for the product suppliers? Through our systematic dismantling we can provide RnD feedback on batch faults when products are dismantled and tested, and through our partner Substation33, we can use the recovered recourses to power and fund social enterprise initiatives such as electronic lighting, signage and solar power storage for remote communities.

Additionally, by demonstrating this MVP to the B-Cycle program or similar product stewardship scheme, to show how they can accelerate implementing embedded product into such schemes, we can prove how the cost of disposal for embedded products can sustainably be passed onto the consumer for a negligible amount, whilst simultaneously encouraging customer traffic back into the store of origin when they are due for a product replacement or upgrade.

Impact

The highest benefit of this model is that it will severely reduce the burden on other re-active measures for lithium disposal dangers such as Detection Systems and fire response systems in general waste streams. It will also make product suppliers and retailers incentivized to provide informative recycling awareness as an added side effect (I am aware of the specific note here that this isn't a community awareness challenge).
There is an additional community benefit through the production of upcycled products, particularly the ability to create extremely affordable second life solar storage products through our social enterprise partners PowerWells and Substation33 who also employee at risk individuals for e-waste resource recovery and second life lithium battery manufacturing.

Business Model

The business model is already operational, however, to scale to a noticeably impactful level will require the co-operation of other businesses to willingly advertise their ability to reclaim their EOL products and provide them to us. We do not need any scary MOQs or massive funding, merely industry support and awareness of our services. Admittedly our bootstrapped start-up is experienced with working on the coal-face of dismantling and recycling EOL products, but lacking in the professional experience of locking in OEMs and retailers into long term supply contracts despite the obvious financial and SEG benefits (our founders and employees are scientists, engineers and EV technicians). Our current business model is a gateway and role model for how lithium battery recycling does not need to be costly to individuals or businesses, and is a stepping stone to the the 95%+ recycling rates seen in lead-acid battery recycling where people are paid for their scrap batteries.

Market Readiness

What have you piloted so far?
- Running at a profit currently processing approximately 10T per year

What testing and piloting still needs to be done before it’s commercially ready?
- none

Anticipated timeframes for product development:
-estimated number of weeks notice needed to run a pilot: 2 weeks notice required before receive quantities of 2T or more at a time.

We currently have the processes in place to handle the dismantling and disposal of Vapes (a major contributor to waste fires) at $3/kg, which is less than half the cost of what is offered by local recyclers (assuming transparency and consistency in their advertised pricing). We do this with highly efficient dismantling into precise waste streams, removing the embedded lithium batteries for cost effective recycling.

Team

The evidence is the successful operation of the business as it is, which was built to role model how battery recycling can be heavily discounted for businesses with EOL products and re-use can be safe and profitable.