Dive Brief:
- A bill that would create an electric vehicle battery stewardship program in Colorado and establish specific recycling rates for critical materials is awaiting Gov. Jared Polis’s signature.
- If signed, the bill will prohibit propulsion battery landfilling by 2028 and require that batteries be reused, repurposed or recycled “according to industry best practices.” The bipartisan bill has support from recyclers and the auto industry.
- Colorado’s bill would also be the first EV recycling bill in the country to set specific recovery rates for certain critical minerals found in the batteries, a move to shore up domestic supply of elements like lithium, cobalt and nickel.
Dive Insight:
Colorado is “a leader in EV adoption” with around 200,000 electric vehicles on the road, lawmakers wrote in the bill text. As those vehicles age, there’s a growing need to safely handle the batteries inside. Lawmakers envision these batteries to be reused in new EVs, repurposed for things like clean energy storage or recycled at end of life, according to bill text.
Lawmakers and bill advocates — including waste haulers and recyclers in the battery and automotive industry — see the bill as a way to get more life out of aging propulsion batteries while also preventing fires from unsafe storage or dumping.
The EV EPR bill calls for establishing a stewardship program for EV batteries, and would require manufacturers to join the program. It also would require manufacturers to promote the reuse or repurposing of viable batteries and follow minimum mineral recovery rates from batteries. It also sets an Oct. 1, 2028, disposal ban for the batteries.
Applicable battery providers would need to register with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment by July 1, 2027. By Jan. 2, 2029, providers would need to submit a plan to CDPHE that includes a public communication strategy, a notification process for battery collection and criteria to determine whether a battery is eligible for collection.
Starting in 2030, manufacturers would need to submit regular safety plans on EV battery management to CDPHE’s Hazardous Waste Division.
The bill also lays out pathways recyclers and refurbishers can follow to reuse EV batteries for new purposes, such as for energy storage.
It’s also the first propulsion battery EPR bill to specifically list set recovery rate goals for lithium, cobalt and nickel in the propulsion battery feedstock, bill supporters said.
Battery recyclers must recover the “elemental, compound, or intermediate form” of the three minerals. By 2031, they must recover 90% of cobalt and nickel and 50% of lithium. By 2035, lithium recovery rates must jump to 80%. Recyclers must calculate these percentages on an annual basis and use a mass balance approach, according to the bill.
These types of recycling rate targets are sometimes included in EPR bills for other types of batteries, but it’s notable for Colorado’s bill to spell out target recycling rates in propulsion batteries, said Danielle Spalding, senior vice president of corporate and external affairs at Cirba Solutions, a battery recycler.
“Instead of [asking] for the average recovery rate of what's been recovered from a battery, it's going to say, well, how much lithium, nickel, cobalt based on your targeted process? That just really allows and ensures that you know it’s going to responsible recyclers,” she said in an interview.
Colorado already has a battery EPR law for most other kinds of batteries, which passed in 2025 but did not specifically list recovery rate targets for specific minerals.
Spalding said the proposed recovery rates in the EV EPR bill won’t add much more work to Cirba Solutions’ existing battery recycling processes. The company consulted on the bill’s text.
The recycling rate provisions also align with the U.S. government’s growing interest in finding and preserving domestic sources of lithium and other critical materials as a way to strengthen national security and compete with countries currently cornering the market on critical mineral production.
“By setting clear recovery rates and prioritizing reuse and repurposing, this bill helps preserve the functional value of battery components for as long as possible and reduces the need for new extraction,” said Jessica Dunn, a scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Transportation program, in a statement. “This is exactly the kind of science-informed approach we need to ensure electric vehicles deliver their full economic, climate and sustainability potential.”
The Automotive Recyclers Association, which also consulted on the bill, applauded its passage in the general assembly, saying it addresses “the complex nature of working with these batteries that pose workplace safety risks, potential environmental liability, and an uncertain downstream market.”
The bill, if signed into law, will help protect recyclers from facility fires and “provides a no-cost, turnkey solution for stranded batteries that cannot be reused, repaired, repurposed, or remanufactured,” the group said in a statement. It also “supports Colorado’s existing automotive recycling infrastructure by incentivizing a market-based approach to recycling.”
New Jersey was the first state to pass an EV EPR law in 2024.
