Envirostream Australia was created in 2017 to develop safe and innovative management solutions for one of the biggest emerging challenges for the Australian waste stream – batteries.
The Australian Battery Recycling Initiative reports less than 3 per cent of all batteries in Australia are recycled and that Australia lags behind the other OECD countries with our low recovery rates1.
As Australia shifts toward a low carbon economy and increases the investment in renewable energy we will see an increased pressure on the waste stream to manage energy storage batteries at end-of-life.
It is estimated that lithium energy storage batteries will grow by around 300% each year by 2036 and result in waste battery generation of approximately 187,000 tonnes per year2.
The lack of any on-shore solution leads to inappropriate disposal to landfill that can cause fires, large stockpiling events and ultimately shipping this problematic waste to another country for processing, where we cannot guarantee the final destination has the same safety and environmental controls we come to expect in Australia.
In 2014 PF Metals Director, Andrew Mackenzie researched why we don’t have an on-shore solution for energy storage batteries here in Australia. Andrew’s research took him internationally to see first-hand how other countries handle and process batteries and, the types of technologies used. This sparked the innovative design and development of Australia’s first lithium battery processing company; Envirostream Australia.
Two and a half years later in January 2017, Envirostream switched on its first modular processing unit and began processing batteries locally at its Campbellfield facility in Victoria, providing a downstream solution to manage problematic battery wastes as we shift to a clean energy, low carbon economy.
1 Australia Battery Recycling Initiative, 2017, Inclusion of All Batteries in the Victorian E-Waste Landfill Ban.
2 Blue Environment, Ascend and REC, 2015, Hazardous Waste Infrastructure Needs and Capacity Assessment, Department of Environment, Canberra.