Teslas new Lithium Refinery

[harm_less]

A couple of points worth noting are that lithium refining that as stated literally includes "rinse and repeat" which is very demanding of water, and the refinery is sited in a desert location. Also moves are already underway to production of sodium based batteries. Not as energy dense as lithium equivalents but fine for applications where size and weight isn't so much a consideration such as static storage batteries. I guess Tesla has done their homework in both respects.

Yeah i bet alot of water is required in the process, hopefully they have systems that recycle the water in the process, i would expect this is the case, no doubt they have the plant running on solar like their gigafactory in Texas too. Im guessing in another 10+ years or so that there will be a bit more of an influx of lithium batteries for disposal that will make their way back into the supply chain and that recycling plants will grow to fill the market.
I remember a while back that another company started by an ex-tesla employee has built a recycling plant so there is an emerging market to recover the lithium, currently I dont know anyone in NZ who takes lithium batteries, the e-waste company i take dead electronics to says that they dont have anyone in NZ who takes the batteries yet so sadly they go to landfill.
Sodium ion looks quite promising and could be a good incentive for more water desalination plants to be built, particularly in oil rich nations such as Saudi Arabia where they will be needing to diversify their economy out of oil.
I think it will be a way off for practical use in EV's anytime soon, but will be great for home solar energy storage, I think they still dont quite have as good a cycle life as lithium, but each generation is improving.

You might want to acquaint your e-waste company with UpcycleNZ, and be aware that EV batteries are able to be upcycled multiple times before they need to be recycled. The biggest single barrier to EV battery recycling schemes including Redwood Materials who is the ex Tesla guy you mention is a shortage of feedstock due to EV batteries not reaching end of life in sufficient quantities.

The landfill scenario you mention is far more likely to occur for small appliance batteries such as in laptops, phones and the like. I've tried to pass this responsibility onto our local council in the past by leaving the batteries I asked them about on their public counter but I suspect that these just got transferred into their garbage, though hopefully a laptop battery that recently died on me and was 'taken care of' by the repairer ended up in a recycling scheme of some description.