BLOG: From coal mining to urban mining: parallels and polarities

In my role in the Leadership Team at Altilium, I wear many different hats, including supporting the great team of people here at recell.store.

Wearing that hat, I support our existing and new partners to acquire batteries for repair, remanufacture and repurposing. And, with my other Altilium hat, support recell.store to provide End-of-Life (EoL) batteries for recycling at Altilium.

I am no chemical or battery design engineer. The bulk of my career has been spent in the commodity world and basic mining industries, working and trading in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

This might seem a world away from the world I’m in now, but what I’ve realised over the last three years here is that there are many similarities between what we might call traditional or primary mining, and what we do here and call urban mining.

Put simply, the big difference is that my mines now (with reserves to recover) are in cars, rather than in holes in the ground.

The mining of any mineral, and indeed oil production, starts with identifying a potential resource that needs to be drilled to prove out the resource in 5 stages: Inferred, Indicated, Measured, Probable and, finally, Proven reserves.

A proven reserve holds the highest level of geological confidence (these are the right minerals at the right quality and quantity) and is then evaluated based on the ratio of recoverable minerals to waste, as well as how much it will take to build and operate the mine (and, in recent years, the carbon footprint and overall environmental impact is also assessed).

From identifying a resource to actually opening a mine, extracting the ore and then refining the ore into a metal, can take many years.

In urban mining, the first stage is to identify and source the battery (the resource), this is then shredded to produce a substance called black mass (our ‘ore’ equivalent), and then this is processed to extract critical minerals (lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, manganese) which can be used to make new batteries.

Altilium has proven through its patented EcoCathode process we can recover over 95% of these critical minerals. So, to the point above, we know these are the right minerals at the right quality for our needs.

But the same questions above still apply – can our ‘mine’ of EV batteries in the UK provide the right quantity to make the mine viable? Where is the potential waste? How will we build and operate our mine?

And this is where recell.store and our model of urban mining comes in.

EVs have been around for well over a decade, and that means many EV batteries will be approaching their end-of-life. As EVs have also increased in sales over the last decade, even if today’s batteries last longer, there will still be an ongoing supply of them.

So, we could say this gives us the highest level of geological confidence for our urban mine for both quality and quantity.

Through recell.store, batteries ready to be recycled can be sourced, but, before that, and to mitigate any risk of waste, recell.store can also source and supply batteries that still have life in them to Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) as well as repairers and remanufacturers.

Check two for the viability of our urban mine!

So our final parallel question is how are we going to build and operate our mine?

While building a mine in an inaccessible part of the world is certainly a challenge, at least you know where it is. Our mine is in garages and salvage yards, storage facilities and workshops (and even sitting on driveways).

Well, we’re already up and running by breaking ground with recell.store.

This is also why recell.store is so committed to building partnerships across the whole EV battery ecosystem, and to being a centralised core destination for our connected industries, not just for transacting batteries, but for learning and connection, too.

Every connection we make makes the urban mine stronger and deeper, and the possibility of full battery circularity in the UK ever closer.

As the automotive industry transitions from ICE to EV, I, too, have found myself also transitioning from primary mining to urban mining (thankfully, with less controversy and procrastination I might add!).

The similarities between my past and present worlds are fascinating. The potential here, unprecedented. It’s a dynamic and exciting environment to be a part of.

With best wishes for 2026.

Rod Savage

Programme Director, Urban Mining, Altilium + recell.store advisor