Comment by Qwertious

"Waste" is a nebulous term; it usually means "is not currently recycled". But you can't build a waste-recycling industry until after there's lots of waste to recycle, for simple economics of scale. Using waste as a justification to not build new stuff is just stupid.

Batteries especially are just absurd - they're ~10% lithium (and it's mostly in the electrolyte, which realistically means the electrolyte is 100% electrolyte, excuse the tautology), whereas 'lithium ore' is mostly 1-3% (there's some higher, even as high as 8%, but it's mostly 1-3% IIRC). With sufficient scale, that stuff will disappear like scrap copper left on the curb for an hour.