ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF LITHIUM-ION BATTERY RECYCLING IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Global mobile phone use has risen sharply, with Nigeria among leading users. Indiscriminate battery disposal harms the environment and wastes valuable metals. This study investigated the benefits of lithium battery recycling in Nigeria. The study utilizes rechargeable battery data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) from 2010-2025 on mobile GSM subscriptions by using the SIM-to-user ratio model equation and Nigerian population data. This equation divides the total connected lines by a factor of 1.85 to account for multiple SIM ownership, and applies a 50% redundancy factor to reflect subscriber churn. Metal recovery values were calculated using a recycling efficiency of 80%- and 3-years battery lifespan. Polynomial regression models were developed for the forecast. Findings indicated that relationship between waste lithium batteries (WLB) and GDP is a quadratic function of time, while their per capita gave a polynomial model. The resulting breakdown of the quantities of heavy metals in WLB (lithium, cobalt, and nickel) forecasted from 2013-2053 is estimated to be 7871.72, 3502.31, and 2691.83 tons, respectively. The economic and environmental loss of the three metals if there is no recycling from 2026 to 2053 was estimated at around $174.39 million with an uncertainty range of ±15% due to commodity price volatility, and about 36,951 hectares of land out of 92,376,900 hectares in Nigeria. 0.04%). The findings encourage building waste battery recycling plants in Nigeria, creating more jobs, improve revenue, and environmental conservation. The major limitation of this study is the assumption of a constant growth rate for mobile phone users.