from mine
to Scrapyard

Spanning 28 miles from north to south, McDermitt Caldera looks like a wasteland. It’s flat, filled with scrubby, low-lying plants and lies on the border of Oregon and Nevada. But what appears to be a desolate landscape is actually rich with resources. Thacker Pass, located at the southernmost tip of the caldera, holds one of the largest lithium deposits in the world.

Being the primary component in most rechargeable batteries, lithium powers most devices — cell phones, laptops and tablets — that people use daily. However, many don’t know what happens to their devices, or the lithium batteries, when people are done with them. 

“Lithium is an element that generally gets enriched in the [Earth’s] crust, similar to alkalis, sodium, potassium and so on,” said Philipp Ruprecht, a volcanologist and professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Ruprecht has been analyzing the lithium development in McDermitt Caldera. 

McDermitt formed following a volcanic eruption that occurred millions of years ago. According to Ruprecht, most of the minerals from the eruption settled at the bottom of the caldera. Over roughly 100 million years, water collected in the caldera creating a lake, encasing those minerals in a clay-like deposit.

“That's 50 million years ago, roughly speaking. That lake eventually dried up, and you have these clay deposits that are the base of the lake that were enriched from the volcanic deposit, now they're at the surface,” said Ruprecht.

Succeeding lead-acid batteries, lithium-based batteries were first developed 45 years ago. The emergence of 21st-century technology and new devices powered by lithium batteries have created an especially high demand for the product. 

The Thacker Pass lithium deposit is believed to have around 80,000 tons of lithium. 

“Once we build phase one and phase two, we’ll produce enough for 1.6 million electric vehicles every year,” said Tim Crowley, Lithium Americas’ Vice President of Government and External Affairs. Lithium Americas, the company with mining rights at Thacker Pass, aims to harvest the lithium at Thacker Pass in two phases over 40 years.

“The big cost is on the front end, it's building the facility. It's gonna cost us $3 billion,” said Crowley.

The Department of Energy recently loaned Lithium Americas $2.26 billion to develop the facility. General Motors, who owns rights to the entire first phase of the operation, which aims to harvest 40,000 tons of lithium, also contributed $650 million to the development.

While lithium mining at Thacker Pass will occur over the next 40 years, Crowley is optimistic that lithium mines at some point in the future will be obsolete.

“Lithium can be recycled over and over and over again,” said Crowley. “Recycling will play a big role, and you probably can project a time when we won't have to mine for lithium anymore.”

The process of recycling lithium is not always simple.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency considers most lithium batteries a hazardous waste to be handled with care. NextStep Recycling in Eugene, Oregon, provides an opportunity for people to dispose of old electronics containing lithium batteries safely.

“We can reuse them, and we can recycle them,” said Jessica Ahrenholtz, Executive Director of NextStep. She sits at her office desk at the newly renovated NextStep Donation Center. The wall behind her is adorned with posters and mementos. “We do have a way to do it, but there’s a lot to it.” 

Lithium batteries leaving the NextStep warehouse must be taped and labeled with stickers designating the type of battery and declaring the contents hazardous waste.

“The lithium can be a little crazy,” said Ahrenholtz, “I try to be really on top of it because we don’t want to have any fires.” To minimize fire hazards, NextStep goes through its tub of lithium batteries daily to inspect for any swollen batteries in danger of catching fire. 

Lithium batteries are a cost item for NextStep, meaning they are often too expensive to dispose of in bulk. Ahrenholtz said that consumers can drop off batteries in smaller quantities at home improvement stores, “but as a business, I can’t take large quantities to them.” 

The Hazardous Waste Department of Lane County Waste Management is equipped to handle larger quantities of lithium batteries. They require a cap on the donatable amount, less than 35 gallons of materials from any household. 

Ahrenholtz said she was thankful to have places to refer people to when they bring donations that NextStep isn’t equipped for.

NextStep Recycling Donation Center, Eugene, OR.

“I have a lot of referrals and can send people to the correct places,” she said. “So then we’re only having to deal with what we’re on the list for electronics battery recycling.”

Lithium batteries in laptops and computers make up only a small portion of the electronic waste NextStep works with. At their donation warehouse in Eugene, NextStep accepts most electronics ranging from hard drives to stereos to microwaves. 

“We take it whether they’re in working condition or not,” said Ahrenholtz. The work is sorely needed, as the U.S. EPA categorized electronic waste [e-waste] as the fastest-growing waste stream in 2021.

Since 2002, NextStep has kept over 30 million pounds of electronics out of landfills. “Reuse is always our top priority,” said Ahrenholtz, “but if we can’t reuse it then we can recycle it properly.”

While one part of NextStep’s mission focuses on protecting the environment from hazardous waste, the other is providing the community with access to technology.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much we give back to the community,” said Ahrenholtz. “They just think of us as a place to take their old junk.”

While small nonprofits like NextStep can defer to waste management services when needed, global e-waste is still on the rise. However, these small nonprofits remain essential to lithium recycling, and with their help, a future without lithium mining, as Crowley mentioned, is entirely possible.