Nine To Noon World must act to prevent a mountain of EV batteries November 29, 2019

Researchers are warning that as more and more consumers switch to electric vehicles, better methods of recycling their batteries are urgently needed to prevent a mountain of waste.

One million EVs sold around the world in 2017 including 546 here, up from 63 in 2016. In September this year, 605 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles were sold in New Zealand.

Research from the University of Birmingham say that when the batteries from the 2017 fleet begin to wear down in around 20 years, they’ll create 250 thousand tonnes of waste – and that’s just from that one year.

Kathryn talks with the study’s lead author, Gavin Harper, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Faraday Institution.