[MANILA] As the world transitions to a sustainable economy, electric vehicles (EVs) are now a favoured tool in tackling carbon emission goals and climate objectives.
However, beneath the promising veneer of EVs lurk concerns over one particular component needed to run them—lithium-ion batteries. And the lifecycle of lithium-ion batteries—from mining to disposal—reveals a landscape fraught with issues.
Mining the main raw materials needed—lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel—has social and environmental costs, particularly in developing countries where most mines are located.
India, a major potential market for EVs, is moving to amend its mining legislation to allow private players to mine in forest reserves, in an effort to cut its reliance on imported lithium and other critical metals needed for its clean energy transition in power, transport, and other sectors.
Yet, commercial mining in these previously reserved areas threatens the livelihoods of local people and the ecosystems.
“In the past, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled that natural resources belong to the citizens of the country, [but now] the natural resources are no longer for the welfare of the people,” Rebbapragada Ravi, chair of Mines, Minerals & PEOPLE , an alliance of environmental advocates in India, told SciDev.Net.
The new policy is a complete turnaround from previous administrations.
In Indonesia, despite high investments in nickel mining regions, local populations see little benefit, based on the study by PRAKARSA, a Jakarta-based think tank.
According to one of the authors, Ricko Nurmansyah, the conversion of capital investment to production is highly inefficient.
He cites the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR)—a common metric to assess efficiency of production gains from capital invested—in Southeast Sulawesi at 10.6 per cent in 2021, far exceeding the ideal three per cent or lower for developing countries.
This suggests “[fund] leakage in the form of budget inefficiencies or corruption in mining areas and mining licensing [in Indonesia],” he told SciDev.Net.
Nurmansyah also cited field research conducted by Kiara, the People’s Coalition for Fisheries Justice, which concluded that nickel mining projects have destroyed water springs, the community’s drinking water source, in several areas in the highlands of Wawonii Islands, off the south east coast of Sulawesi.
He said in South Konawe, a province of south east Sulawesi, nickel mining has polluted local sea waters and local fisherfolks have demanded a halt in mining activity.
In North Konawe, the same extractive activity has contaminated the communities’ water source. Some coastal coral reefs are now covered with mud from nickel ore mining, affecting the fishing activity of the locals.
Similarly, global increased demand for nickel has led to environmental destruction in the Philippines.
In Homonhon Island in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, local residents are calling for the complete stoppage of the nickel mining operation. The island is said to be where the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan first landed in the Philippines in 1521.
Aerial view of Homonhon Island with the nickel mining area now denuded exposing the red earth.
Photo credit: Ian Gaytos Amoroto
Most of the people in Homonhon are farmers and fisherfolk. But a number of them are complaining that the nickel mining operations have destroyed their livelihood, particularly calamansi, a popular Philippine citrus fruit, and root crops, according to Fara Diva Gamalo of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice Eastern Visayas Chapter.
The destruction of forested areas and the farming lands, along with water siltation that affected the fisherfolks did not only destroy the residents’ livelihood, “but are also creating division among the communities, as some were being influenced by mining companies in their bid to secure paper (to operate) for mining activities,” Gamalo told SciDev.Net.
In 1994, Presidential Proclamation 469 declared the coastal waters of Guiuan as protected, and in 2006, the Provincial Board of Eastern Samar passed an ordinance against large-scale mining, while in 2012, Executive Order No. 79 excluded Homonhon island’s ecosystems from large-scale mining.
But except for a short period in 2017, mining in the area continued, according to Gamalo. In April this year, Homonhon residents protested the Environmental Management Bureau’s decision allowing a mining company to start public scoping, an early step for mining clearance, despite legal prohibitions, and failure to conduct an education and information campaign in the communities affected three months prior, which is a prerequisite for public scoping.
In another case, in the nearby province of Romblon, the nickel mining project of Altai Philippines Mining Corporation (APMC) in Sibuyan has encroached on protected areas threatening the livelihoods of the community and the delicate biodiversity of the area, said Jon Bonifacio of the community-NGO Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment. The mining site is also highly susceptible to landslides.
Considered as the ‘Galapagos of Asia’, Sibuyan have one of the densest forests in the Philippines and is home to various threatened unique flora and fauna, such as an endemic pitcher plant, the long tailed-macaque, and golden mantled-flying fox, one of the world’s smallest fruit bats, which is now vulnerable to extinction.
“While we support the transition to renewable energy and understand the necessity of lithium-ion batteries, the effort should not result in environmental destruction, as it undermines the very aim of clean energy,”
Jon Bonifacio of the community-NGO Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment
Local residents resisted and filed for a court order to stop the extraction activities of APMC in February 2023. Four months later, the Philippine high court issued a cease and desist order, halting mining activity.
SciDev.Net reached out to APMC, however, no comments were received in time for publication.
Bonifacio told SciDev.Net that “while we support the transition to renewable energy and understand the necessity of lithium-ion batteries, the effort should not result in environmental destruction, as it undermines the very aim of clean energy.”
About 90 per cent of the world’s lithium is supplied by Australia, Chile and China. Australia produces over half of the global supply through hard-rock mining, while Chile extracts lithium from brine deposits. Although China’s lithium reserves are about eight per cent of the global total, it controls more than half of the world’s refining capacity and is a major buyer of the commodity.
Chile and Peru are the top producers of copper, followed by China. For cobalt, Congo is the lead, followed by Russia, Australia and the Philippines. Indonesia is the top-producer of nickel. Other major nickel producing countries include the Philippines, Russia and Australia.
Smartphones
Although electric vehicle market penetration in Southeast Asia remains low, over half of Southeast Asia’s population, or around 400 million people, have smartphones, roughly about 15 per cent have tablets, and by 2028, it is estimated there would be 17 million laptops in the region, all of which use lithium-ion batteries.
However, lithium is toxic if not handled well and properly used, while extended exposure to nickel can harm the lungs and kidney, and may lead to cancer.
Globally, electronic waste—or e-waste—is now an emerging problem with more than 50 million metric tons (MMT) produced annually, and these numbers only set to rise.
Yet recycling capacity has failed to keep pace.
Singapore inaugurated in 2021 the first facility for lithium-ion mineral extraction from spent batteries in Southeast Asia. It is capable of recycling 14 tons, equivalent to 280,000 lithium-ion smartphone batteries, of electronic waste daily. It has recently opened a third similar facility.
However, Indonesia is only in the early stage of development for treating and recycling waste batteries. There have been several investments for plant or facilities that actually recycle spent lithium-ion batteries and recover the valuable materials. One of these is an Indian-owned facility expected to be functional later this year.
Whereas Thailand has no specific legislation for lithium-ion battery waste recovery plants, although there are laws covering electronic waste management.
Segways
EV adoption is sluggish in India, the Philippines and Vietnam, coming mostly in the form of e-motorbikes, various three-wheelers and electric micromobility vehicles such as e-bikes, Segways, electric scooters, powered skateboards, golf carts, wheelchairs and monowheels.
However, none of the these countries have much capacity and infrastructure to extract lithium-ion powder from the spent batteries.
In 2022, the Philippines enacted RA 11697, a law that integrates the EV industry and eventual recycling of electric batteries.
Rinlee Butch Cervera, professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD), said while the country does not currently have any recycling or disposal facility for lithium-ion batteries, with funding support, a local facility can be built readily.
“In my laboratory at UPD, we have an ongoing project supported by Department of Science and Technology related to [lithium-ion] battery recycling and recovery which we are hoping to upscale soon with future support,” he explained.
“I think that lithium-ion battery technology will still be dominant in a decade or more,” he told SciDev.Net when asked for battery-technology beyond lithium, adding that “we just need to properly adapt to our own local needs and benefits as well as to also prepare for upcoming technological battery advancements”.
Dumping grounds
The insufficient recycling infrastructure exacerbates the growing problem of e-waste, posing environmental and health hazards.
Despite the existence of various technologies to safely recover toxic but economically valuable metals and minerals, many discarded EV batteries will add to the mounting unrecycled e-waste, some of which are eventually shipped and dumped into the landfills and dumpsites of developing countries.
According to Ban Toxics, informal recycling is often the norm in developing countries and is inherently hazardous, while landfill dumping is often considered the final disposal technology due to low maintenance costs.
“Solid waste management in the [Philippines] is a mixed bag, with local government units choosing their own waste management priorities and strategies,” Ban Toxics’s Jashaf Shamir Lorenzo told SciDev.Net.
A policy and research associate at Ban Toxics, Lorenzo said that for lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, his organization’s concern lies in whether “the production of lithium and nickel are ethically and environmentally sustainable” in the first place, and how the resulting e-waste is discarded.
According to Lorenzo, informal waste recycling would be very difficult to minimize, let alone halt. It is part of a sector that provides employment for more than half of the population in Asia-Pacific, not to mention social cohesion.
“Of course, [we] welcome the end of the fossil fuel era, and EVs as a better alternative to traditional vehicles,” Lorenzo said.
“However, we can’t just solve air quality issues that come from traditional vehicles by shifting to EVs.”
This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.
