Chinese 'garbage collectors' in race to recycle EV batteries

Grey market has sprung up outside official system set up for processing used cells

DONGGUAN, China They call themselves "garbage collectors", but the metal boxes that Mr Li and his team in southern China gather and sell are in reality immensely valuable and difficult to come by.

The seven men are traders of a hot new commodity in the world's biggest and most mature electric-vehicle market: used batteries.

Each one contains prized ingredients like lithium, cobalt and nickel that can be extracted and resold.

With millions of electric vehicles (EVS) now ready to be discarded, and thousands already abandoned in graveyards across the nation, there is a flood of retired batteries waiting to be recycled.

All those precious metals, hidden in junkyards, carparks and driveways across China, are a crucial resource as global competition for critical minerals escalates and countries jostle to come out on top in the green transition.

An effective, safe and environmentally friendly system for collecting and processing batteries would put Chinese carmakers ahead of the curve. They would be able to produce electric cars with recycled batteries at scale making them doubly green giving them an edge over international rivals as governments mandate more EV sales and places like Europe require minimum levels of recycled metals in vehicles.

Reaching that point, however, will require consolidating a sprawling industry of thousands of players from freelancers like Mr Li and other small unofficial recycling workshops, to giant battery makers. Mr Li, 29, is part of a grey market that has emerged alongside a fast-growing battery recycling industry seeking to profit from China's first wave of EV decommissioning. He asked to use only his last name because he operates outside the government system set up for processing used batteries.