Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the UK’s capacity to (a) process and (b) recycle electric vehicle batteries over the next 20 years.

Defra has not formally made this estimate, however as part of the department’s ongoing review of the UK batteries regulations we are considering waste electric vehicle battery arisings and the capacity that will be required to process them.

Under current regulations, take back, treatment and recycling of waste industrial batteries, which includes electric vehicle batteries, are statutory requirements under the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations (2009). Producers of industrial batteries are required to take back waste batteries and must then ensure they are delivered to and accepted by an approved battery treatment operator or an approved battery exporter, for treatment and recycling either in or outside the United Kingdom. Producers must, by law, finance this treatment.

Businesses are taking steps to capture the economic opportunity in recycling electric vehicle batteries, and the Department of Business and Trade’s DRIVE35 funding programme recently awarded £18.5m grant funding to Altilium in Plymouth, who expect to be able to process 24,000 electric vehicle batteries per year.