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I read on Wikipedia quite the opposite: we don't recycle Lithium it because it costs 5 times more than freshly extracted lithium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling#Lithium_ion_...

If my math is correct, the battery needs to last at least 10 years to break even if you factor in the cost of recycling the lithium.

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Recycled lithium might cost 5x more. Not that the disposal cost of a battery is 5x the purchase price.

If the battery pays for its purchase price in 2 years and the disposal cost is 1/2 the price of a new battery (doubt it's anywhere near that), then the it would still pay for the total cost of ownership in 3 years.

From what I understand, used-up lithium batteries are fairly non-toxic and can be safely dumped in a landfill. Still not zero-cost, but probably about as low as you can get. And they can probably recover some of that cost by recycling some of the other metals from them.

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