Redwood Materials to Recycle Lime’s Scooter and E-Bike Batteries: A Sustainable Future for Urban Mobility

Lime, a leading shared micromobility company, has recently announced an exciting partnership with Redwood Materials to recycle batteries from its scooters and e-bikes. This collaboration aims to extract and recycle essential minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper, thus promoting a more sustainable approach to battery usage in micromobility.

Details of the Lime and Redwood Materials Agreement

On Monday, Lime revealed that Redwood Materials will be its exclusive battery recycling partner for shared scooters and e-bikes in various locations across the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands. However, this agreement does not extend to all regions where Lime operates, which includes cities in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Previous Recycling Initiatives

While Lime has previously engaged in recycling partnerships, such as with Sprout and its downstream vendors, this marks the first direct collaboration with a North American battery recycler that will process materials for recovery. This innovative approach aims to reintegrate recycled materials back into the supply chain.

Redwood Materials: A Leader in Battery Recycling

Founded by former Tesla CFO JB Straubel, Redwood Materials is based in Carson City, Nevada. The startup specializes in recovering valuable materials from batteries that have reached the end of their life cycle. Once these materials are recycled, they will be reintroduced into the battery manufacturing process, fostering a closed-loop system that reduces the need for mining and refining new minerals.

Alignment with Lime’s Sustainability Goals

This partnership aligns perfectly with Lime’s sustainability objectives. The company aims to achieve complete decarbonization by 2030 and has already reduced its Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 59.5% over the past five years, compared to its 2019 levels. Lime is set to report its 2024 Carbon Emissions results in May.

Andrew Savage, VP for Sustainability at Lime, emphasized the significance of this collaboration: “This partnership marks significant progress towards establishing a more circular supply chain, ensuring our batteries are responsibly recycled and that their materials are reintegrated into the battery supply chain.”

Expanding Sustainability Partnerships

In addition to Redwood Materials, Lime has also formed partnerships with Gomi in the U.K. and VoltR in France and other European regions. These collaborations focus on harvesting viable battery cells for “second life” applications, which can be utilized in consumer electronics like portable speakers and battery packs.

Redwood Materials’ Broader Impact

Redwood Materials is not just partnering with Lime; it has established agreements with other prominent micromobility companies, including Lyft, Rad Power Bikes, and Specialized, to recycle their e-bike and scooter batteries. Recently, Redwood announced the opening of a new R&D center in San Francisco, further enhancing its capabilities in battery recycling and sustainability.

For more information on Lime’s sustainability efforts, you can visit their official website or explore insights on Redwood Materials.