On June 21, 2023 Daphne Hulse and Shreya Mahajan met with Seema Nilakhe to discuss Redwood Materials and opportunity for collaboration.

• Introductions

  • Seema Nilakhe, originally from Chicago suburbs, attended U of I

  • Amy Fruehling was career counselor for Seema during her undergraduate years

  • Dabbling in environmental initiatives

  • Worked at Amazon for supply chain

  • Worked at Tesla

    • Infrastructure projects in North America

  • Wanted to work at start up so went to Redwood Materials

    • Lithium ion batteries

    • Based out of Reno, Nevada

    • Consumer partnerships is Seema’s role

  • Don’t take

    • Lead acid

    • Cadmium

    • Car batteries

• Daphne notes that the batteries Redwood would be interested in would likely come from university property, which is handled by CMS/Surplus/OBFS

  • Seema can assist with looking into this process

• Redwood process:

  • Pickup batteries with large OEMs (large car companies that make EVs)

  • Redwood picks up scrap

  • Redwood partners with Call2Recycle

  • Typically you have to pay a fee for Call2Recycle for their services (U of I may have had the service for free?)

  • Collections would be the biggest benefit for us:

    • Cell phones, laptops, smaller devices are high in cobalt and nickel and critical elements that are part of the battery

    • Larger devices would need to be checked for logistics and chemistry

    • Pricing is based on gross weight

    • Collections - don’t provide packaging but suppliers have the drums, crates, or collection mechanism to do that

    • DOT shipping guidelines (Redwood has that and can give us a sample) we have to be in compliance

    • Under 60 watt hours

    • Engineering may have drums that we could use to ship the batteries

    • Gaylords work too

  • Differences between primary and secondary batteries

    • Primaries - non-rechargables

      • Watch batteries

      • Typically lithium ion

  • Have partners which take all of the excess materials that aren’t batteries

    • Secondary - rechargeable

Next steps:

• CMS/Surplus - ask if they already recycle batteries, or need an outlet for it

• Check inventory on drums and gaylords/shipping materials - Seema will send DOT guidelines

• Event with marketing/public relations

• Bin in the Union - how do you keep people from randomly throw items in there that are not batteries? Must be supervised

• Stick to call2recycle for AA AAA alkaline