and used batteries will eventually go to landfills as currently, once cobalt is recovered, the rest is worthless.
The Chinese manufacture 90% of the world's lithium batteries and in doing so strip mine large areas for coal to provide prowar and huge swaths of land for lithium in Western areas while using semi- slave labor. The US cannot conceivably cover that short fall and certainly environmental rules would support a million strong army of protestors against digging one spade of dirt.
We just don't have the where-with-all to compete especially in the areas needed for self-defense.
Okay, I was off track but now I'm back on the rails. Newer batteries now being developed without Cobalt will be useless to recyclers so instead of most of the battery going to a landfill, the entire battery will soon windup in a landfill.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Sir Isaac Newton) or the law of unintended consequences.