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Published - 12 September 2025 - 5 min read

Overcoming Battery Recycling Challenges with Battery Passports

The global transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage has accelerated demand for lithium-ion batteries. While this shift supports climate targets, it also raises critical questions about how to manage the millions of tonnes of batteries that will eventually reach the end of their life.

Recycling is central to reducing waste, recovering critical raw materials, and lowering carbon emissions. Yet, many challenges are slowing down the progress, including a lack of transparency, poor collection systems, and limited consumer engagement.

Digital Battery Passports (DBPs) are now seen as a vital tool in addressing these challenges. With the help of embedded, accurate and verifiable data in every battery, DBPs can unlock more efficient recycling pathways and promote circular economy practices.

Challenges to Effective Battery Recycling

Lack of Transparency

Recyclers frequently lack access to information about a battery’s chemistry, condition, or lifecycle history. This lack of data complicates dismantling processes, increases safety risks, and undermines recovery efficiency. The European Commission has highlighted that poor transparency is a central reason for low recovery rates of valuable raw materials.

Hazardous and Costly Dismantling

Battery dismantling is complex. With tightly integrated modules and flammable electrolytes, safe processing requires detailed technical knowledge. Without accessible data, recyclers must rely on manual labour, driving up costs and increasing risk.

Weak Collection Systems

Collection rates remain low across global markets. Even within the EU, where regulation is advancing, many batteries escape formal collection networks and are instead lost to informal channels or landfills.

Economic Barriers

The economics of recycling remain difficult to balance. When raw material prices fall, recyclers struggle to compete with virgin extraction. Without battery recycling incentives such as subsidies, tax relief, or credits for recovered materials, investment in recycling infrastructure remains limited.

The Environmental Impact of Improper Battery Disposal

Improper battery disposal poses serious environmental threats. Toxic substances such as cobalt, nickel, and electrolytes can leach into soil and water, contaminating ecosystems and endangering human health.

Fires from discarded batteries are also increasingly common in waste facilities. By ensuring safe collection and recycling, DBPs can reduce the environmental impact of battery disposal while maximising material recovery.

Incentives to Promote Battery Recycling

Effective battery recycling incentives are essential for widespread participation. Governments are exploring mechanisms such as:

  • Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes require manufacturers to finance collection and recycling.
  • Deposit-return systems that reward consumers for returning batteries.
  • Subsidies for companies investing in advanced recycling technologies.

Such measures create shared responsibility across consumers, industry, and policymakers, ensuring that recycling is not only a legal obligation but also an economically viable activity.

How Consumer Education Programs Can Help

Technological solutions alone cannot solve recycling challenges. Consumer education programs are crucial in raising awareness about proper disposal methods and the benefits of recycling.

Campaigns led by local governments, NGOs, and industry groups can teach consumers how to return batteries safely, why recycling reduces emissions, and how DBPs provide transparency in the process.

Informed consumers are more likely to return batteries to authorised collection points, increasing recovery rates and building trust in recycling systems.

International Collaboration in Battery Recycling

Battery supply chains are global. Mining often takes place in Africa or South America, manufacturing is concentrated in Asia, and consumption is high in Europe and North America. Without coordination, recycling efforts risk becoming fragmented.

BASE is helping Europe take the lead in shaping a common framework for recycling data and standards. By aligning DBPs with the EU Battery Regulation, the project demonstrates how a unified system can support international cooperation. European leadership is already influencing discussions with trade partners in Asia and North America, where policymakers are exploring how data-sharing protocols could harmonise recycling practices.

This shows how DBPs are not just a European solution but a foundation for global alignment. By proving the model works in Europe first, BASE is creating a blueprint that others can adapt.

Recycling Technology Advancements

Innovation in recycling is advancing rapidly, helping to overcome challenges that previously made processes inefficient and hazardous. Innovations such as–

  • Hydrometallurgical techniques use chemical leaching to extract high-purity lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
  • Direct recycling methods aim to preserve cathode materials in usable form, reducing the need for energy-intensive reprocessing.
  • Automation and robotics are increasingly deployed to dismantle batteries safely and efficiently, guided by data from DBPs.

These recycling technology advancements will only reach full potential when coupled with accurate data on battery composition and condition, which DBPs are designed to provide.

How Battery Passports Help With Recycling

Transparent Data Access

DBPs give recyclers standardised information on chemistry, lifecycle history, and state of health, enabling safer dismantling and more efficient recovery of valuable materials.

Compliance and Monitoring

The EU Battery Regulation (2023/1542) requires manufacturers to disclose carbon footprints, recycled content, and recovery targets. DBPs provide the digital backbone for meeting these obligations.

Facilitating Secondary Use

Before recycling, DBPs can support repurposing batteries in stationary energy storage, extending their lifecycle and reducing waste.

BASE EU: Breaking Down Recycling Barriers

The BASE EU Project is at the forefront of deploying DBPs to improve recycling outcomes. Its platform integrates distributed ledger technology, AI analytics, and harmonised circularity indicators to ensure data integrity and interoperability across the battery value chain.

By piloting DBPs in real-world recycling and reuse scenarios, BASE demonstrates how transparent digital tools can overcome long-standing barriers, enhance collection, and improve material recovery efficiency.

Future Outlook

The future of battery recycling will depend on coordinated efforts in policy, technology, and consumer engagement. Governments must enforce robust frameworks while offering financial incentives. Consumers must be educated and empowered to return used batteries responsibly. Industry must continue to invest in recycling innovations and participate in global collaboration efforts.

Battery passports offer a unifying solution, enabling each stakeholder to access trustworthy data, reduce risks, and align with global sustainability targets. With initiatives like BASE, Europe is leading the way in proving that data-driven recycling can close material loops and reduce the environmental footprint of the battery industry.

References

European Commission — Critical Raw Materials Act: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en

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