New Delhi, Aug 1 (IANS) China is entering its first major wave of electric‑vehicle battery retirements, a new report has said, pointing to instances of the country’s failures to safely recycle millions of tonnes of used lithium‑ion cells.
China reported 4 lakh metric tonnes of EV battery waste last year, the report from the US-based publication Inside Climate News said — citing a joint China‑US study — adding that the figure could rise to 1.69 million tonnes by 2030 and 22.39 million tonnes by 2040.
Annual sales of battery‑powered vehicles in China had skyrocketed from nearly 1 million in 2018 to over 16 million in 2025, and with EV batteries typically lasting about eight years, the country is facing its first major wave of battery retirements.
The number of batteries requiring disposal or reprocessing is expected to grow rapidly in the years ahead, which poses a major waste-management and recycling challenge for the nation.
China began building a formal recycling system in 2018 and by 2023 had placed more than 150 companies on a government “white list”, which collectively had certified a combined annual processing capacity of 6,23,000 tonnes.
The capacity was over 1.5 times the volume retired that year, but certified recyclers handled only about 25% of retired batteries, leaving a large share to informal operators, the report alleged.
An investigation published earlier in 2026 by Yicai, a Chinese financial news outlet, mentioned its reporters trying to contact every company on the white list, finally realising that 100 were no longer operating or could not be reached, the media house said.
China’s used-battery supply largely flows through uncertified recyclers, creating serious environmental and safety risks linked to contamination and improper disposal.
“In a case announced in Jiangxi Province in 2024, an uncertified company was found to have improperly dismantled 364 metric tons of waste lithium iron phosphate batteries. The resulting contamination caused vegetation to die across six acres of forest and killed more than 420 cubic feet of standing timber,” the report said.
—IANS
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