Anyone who has dead batteries at home now has a real treasure!

The dead batteries piled up in homes are seen not as waste but as a “treasure.” Experts point out that even single-use AA and AAA batteries contain critical metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper, which are of strategic importance today.

Currently, an electric vehicle battery in Europe contains an average of 30 kg of nickel and 8 kg of cobalt; recycling these metals reduces both reliance on mining and environmental pressure.

According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), by 2023, battery recycling facilities were able to recover nickel and cobalt from more than 40% of the existing waste battery stock, and lithium from 20%. These rates reveal how much investment in joint facilities has accelerated in recent years and the importance of waste batteries as a “new raw material” in the market.

It is recommended to leave batteries at battery collection points.

The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and municipalities recommend that spent batteries be left in collection boxes and at battery collection points in electronics markets and supermarkets, without mixing them with household waste.

Thus, when directed to the right channels, each discarded battery can be reprocessed in recycling facilities and become the raw material of new batteries and electric vehicle batteries. Experts warn, “Regularly returning the dead batteries accumulated at home both protects nature and ensures that critical metals are brought into the national economy.”