Lithium-ion batteries are in everything now — EVs, e-bikes, laptops, power tools, scooters. Millions are reaching the end of life with no clear plan. The fires are already starting. And the window to get ahead of this is closing fast.
Picture this: a garbage truck compresses a bag of household waste. Inside, buried under takeout containers and old mail, is an e-bike battery someone didn’t know what to do with — so they tossed it.
The compression crushes it. The lithium-ion cells are short. Within seconds, a fire starts that can’t be put out with a standard extinguisher. The driver pulls over. The truck is damaged. In the worst cases, people get hurt.
This isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening right now, and it’s accelerating.
Fires at recycling and waste facilities from improperly discarded lithium-ion batteries reached 448 incidents across the US and Canada in 2025 alone — causing more than $2.5 billion in damage. January and February 2026 already recorded 56 publicly reported fires, the highest February total since tracking began in 2016.
And this is before the real wave hits.
California is driving straight into a battery retirement crisis
California has committed to 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. The intermediate target is 35% EV sales share in 2026 — and the state is on track. That’s an enormous achievement for clean transportation. But it’s also an enormous future liability that almost nobody in the policy conversation is addressing honestly.
The average EV battery lasts around 10 years before it degrades enough to retire. The first wave of mainstream EV adoption — Tesla Model S, Nissan Leaf, early Chevy Bolts — is already hitting that milestone. A far larger wave follows behind it.
And it’s not just EVs. The lithium-ion battery is now inside nearly everything — e-bikes, e-scooters, laptops, tablets, power tools, electric lawn mowers, backup power systems, and medical devices. All of them have a lifespan. All of them will eventually need to go somewhere. Most people have no idea where that somewhere is.
“You can’t put a lithium-ion battery in your recycling bin. You can’t put it in the trash. It can’t go in a garbage truck. Most people find this out the hard way — or don’t find out at all.”
The policy is trying to catch up — but it’s still catching up
California has been wrestling with this. Governor Newsom vetoed SB 615 in 2024 — a bill that would have required all EV batteries to be reused, repurposed, or recycled at end-of-life — citing implementation concerns while agreeing with the intent. The Advanced Clean Cars II regulations do require manufacturers to label batteries with chemistry information. California SB 1215, which took effect January 1, 2026, expanded e-waste recycling obligations to cover battery-embedded products, including laptops and tablets.
Progress, yes. But there’s still no comprehensive, enforced, end-to-end framework for what happens when a lithium-ion battery — whether from a Tesla or a Rad Power e-bike — actually reaches the end of its useful life. The infrastructure is racing to catch up with the adoption curve, and right now, it’s losing.
California IT and fleet managers, take note: Under SB 1215, battery-embedded devices — including most modern laptops, tablets, and handheld tools — now fall under California’s covered e-waste program. Disposing of these through standard waste channels isn’t just irresponsible. In many cases, it’s no longer legal.
The hidden value inside every dead battery
Here’s the part of this story that gets lost in the fire statistics: these batteries are valuable. A spent lithium-ion battery pack contains lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, and aluminum — critical minerals that are expensive to mine, central to supply chain security, and in growing global demand as EV production accelerates.
The International Energy Agency has identified battery recycling as a major lever for strengthening critical mineral supply and reducing the environmental cost of new mining. Research suggests that by 2050, recycled EV battery materials could cover more than 60% of new EV battery demand annually in California alone.
That’s not a distant future scenario. It’s the infrastructure that needs to be built — and funded — right now, before the retirement wave crests.
“Every lithium battery that ends up in a landfill or a garbage truck is both a safety incident waiting to happen and a critical mineral that will have to be mined all over again somewhere else.”
What responsible organizations are doing right now
The businesses and institutions getting ahead of this aren’t waiting for a comprehensive federal policy. They’re treating battery-embedded devices as a separate category in their asset retirement planning — with its own handling, documentation, and disposal pathway.
- Audit your battery-embedded device inventory. Laptops, tablets, e-bikes, power tools, UPS systems, handheld scanners — anything with a built-in rechargeable battery needs a retirement plan distinct from your standard e-waste stream.
- Never put lithium batteries in standard recycling or trash. They cannot go in curbside bins, garbage trucks, or general e-waste streams that are not equipped for them. The fire risk is real, and the liability is yours.
- Work with a certified handler. Lithium-ion batteries require specialized collection, transport, and processing. Under California SB 1215, covered devices must go through proper channels — and you need documentation that they did.
- Think second life before disposal. EV battery packs with degraded range can often be repurposed for stationary energy storage. A certified ITAD partner can assess what’s recoverable before anything goes to recycling.
The conversation California needs to have
The state’s EV ambitions are the right ambitions. Zero-emission transportation is the right direction. But a truly sustainable EV future isn’t just about what goes on the road — it’s about what happens when those vehicles, and the devices around them, reach the end of their useful lives.
The battery retirement infrastructure needs to scale alongside EV adoption, not a decade behind it. That means policy, investment, and — right now, today — organizations taking seriously how they handle every lithium-ion battery that leaves their possession.
At Reboot Tech Recycling, we process battery-embedded electronics and devices through California-compliant e-waste pathways, with a documented chain of custody and proper handling from pickup through processing. If your organization is dealing with end-of-life laptops, tablets, or other battery-embedded devices and isn’t sure where they’re going, that’s the conversation we need to have.