Veolia

#Europe's next mine is already above ground: it lies in our used electric vehicle #batteries! Today, in Moselle, France, we inaugurated a European first: our new unit recovering strategic metals from them. It is a turning point for the continent. An electric car requires around 6 X more critical raw materials than a conventional car. Demand for nickel, cobalt, copper and lithium is soaring, while Europe remains heavily dependent on other parts of the world to secure its supplies. Yet we have already extracted many of these metals. Our mission is simple: keep them in our economy! But recovering these metals is far from straightforward. Imagine I give you scrambled eggs and ask you to separate the whites from the yolks again. That is roughly the challenge our engineers face when recycling batteries! At our Dieuze site, batteries collected from across Europe are processed into what is known as “black mass”: a dark powder rich in metals. Then here, in Malancourt-la-Montagne, we use a cutting-edge, patent-protected hydrometallurgical process, based on unique expertise, to separate these metals and restore them to a quality level that allows them to be reused by industry. Each year, our facility will be able to recycle nearly 7,000 tonnes of black mass, the equivalent of 20,000 tonnes of batteries. This is #EnvironmentalSecurity in action. The metals we recover and reuse from end-of-life batteries help strengthen our resilience and reduce our dependence on producers in other parts of the world. We need to be smart about how we manage these resources: we need traceability, effective controls and consistent rules to ensure that materials from end-of-life electric vehicles can support a European recycling and processing industry. The worst-case scenario would be for Europe to recycle its batteries only to help reindustrialise other continents rather than its own. This does not mean lowering our environmental standards. Quite the opposite: we must turn our environmental ambition into a genuine industrial advantage. Europe’s ambition cannot be measured solely by the legislation we adopt. It must also be measured by the projects that are delivered, the investments that become reality, the jobs that are created and the resources we are able to recover, right here in Europe. And sovereignty cannot simply be declared. It is built in our factories, through investment, business innovation, the commitment of local communities and public leaders who create the conditions for success. Today, we have tangible proof! Thank you to @steph_sejourne and @Franck_LEROY_ for their visit and support. And also to our partners: @Bpifrance, @ademe, the City of Amnéville and the Moselle Departmental Council, as well as all the @Veolia teams who made this project possible. Let’s make sure that the resources already available in our territories help build the Europe of tomorrow!