The purpose of the loan granted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is to finance the redevelopment of Elemental Holding’s recycling facility in Zawiercie (southern Poland) as well as the installation of the on-site solar panel plant.
Elemental Strategic Metals, one of the Elemental Holding Group’s companies, is currently building a new facility for recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for electric vehicles along with batteries for laptops, mobile phones and other devices as well as spent automotive catalysts (SACs). In future, such critical earth elements as lithium, cobalt, platinum, palladium and rhodium will be recovered in Zawiercie. Aside from these precious metals, the plant will also produce other materials to be reused as inputs in the production of new batteries and other uses in line with the principles of circular economy.
“The construction of our plant in Zawiercie is a crucial batteries-related investment in Poland and one of the first such projects in Europe. Built in compliance with all applicable environmental standards, laws and regulations, it is aimed to support responsible management of scarce resources as part of a circular economy through the recycling of scarce platinum group metals (PGMs)” – underlines Paweł Jarski, CEO of Elemental Holding
The Zawiercie project will open for Elemental Holding Group the new and constantly growing market for LIB recycling as well as expand its operations in the PGM recycling segment by providing it with a new processing plant.
The construction of the new cutting-edge facility with high production capacities was made possible by raising long-term financing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The loan obtained from EBRD will also to be used to build the installation of a solar panel plant that will generate electricity for the facility’s own needs, which will reduce its carbon footprint.
EBRD will also examine the project’s technological aspects to inform the optimisation of the company’s investment decisions. The entire project got top marks from the experts of the European Commission, the National Centre for Research and Development and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.