EV battery recycler expands into consumer electronics

Redwood Materials, a company founded on recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, launched a consumer recycling program in partnership with Audi to capture more batteries. 

The consumer recycling program will allow people to drop off old devices and rechargeable batteries at select Audi dealerships. Batteries and devices collected will be returned to Redwood “to build increasingly more sustainable, domestic EV batteries.” 

“Redwood’s Consumer Recycling Program was created to make consumer device and rechargeable battery recycling frictionless, allowing everyone to responsibly recycle and increase the sustainability of all our products,” a press release stated. 

“Today, less than 5% of lithium-ion battery-containing devices get recycled, mainly because clear recycling pathways don’t exist,” the press release noted. “Redwood and Audi see a tremendous opportunity to create these pathways, allow consumers to recycle their batteries, and then use these batteries to domestically remanufacture new, sustainable electric vehicle batteries.”

The recycling company already had a partnership with Volkswagen Group of America to recycle all end-of-life batteries from Volkswagen and Audi electric vehicles, and an agreement with Rotary Clubs for a similar take-back program for consumer devices.