A giant concern amongst these of us with environmental considerations is: What occurs to the batteries? It’s a truthful query and one which deserves to be taken critically and answered correctly. Even RedEarth, which provides stationary dwelling batteries, finds this the most typical buyer concern. We will level to massive companies like Redwood Supplies and discuss shredding and refining and recovering, however maybe there’s a battery recycling step earlier than that?
At a current go to to Substation33 — a social enterprise that repurposes techno waste — I used to be handled to a narrative which is illustrative of the round economic system because it applies to electrical automobile batteries.
An early adopter of an electrical automobile purchased a Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Though she initially discovered its vary ample for her wants, when battery upgrades grew to become obtainable, she had the work achieved by OZDIY. The used prismatic batteries from the i-MiEV had been then bought to Substation33. At S33 these batteries had been examined and repurposed to energy indicators warning of flooded roads. One i-MiEV battery will energy 50 indicators, and one signal has the potential to save lots of many lives.
Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Photograph courtesy Majella Waterworth
Substation33 is busy in the intervening time, as it’s fulfilling orders for flooded highway warning methods for Brisbane Metropolis Council. Because the third 12 months of La Niña approaches, they are going to be put to good use. Final moist season, Brisbane skilled over one metre of rain in just a few days. Many areas in Queensland and New South Wales had been flooded, some twice.
Repurposing EV batteries into flood warning indicators is a superb instance of what could be achieved as soon as they’re now not appropriate to energy an EV.
Substation33 additionally recycles batteries from digital gadgets. Since 2020 they’ve refurbished and delivered over 4000 recycled laptops to state faculties within the Logan space south of Brisbane. Subsequent 12 months they’ll undertake the motto “2023 in ’23,” referring to the variety of computer systems they hope to refurbish and ship into the fingers of native college students and households.
Tony Sharp, Founder and Supervisor of S33, tells me that since my final go to 12 months in the past, S33 has doubled the variety of folks it employs, doubled the revenue, and doubled its footprint. “We’ve no grand imaginative and prescient,” he says. “We simply take the following step.”
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