The Necessity of Recycling of Waste Li-Ion Batteries Used in Electric Vehicles as Objects Posing a Threat to Human Health and the Environment

The automotive industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the modern economy. Growing customer expectations, implementing solutions related to electromobility, and increasingly stringent legal restrictions in the field of environmental protection, determine the development and introduction of innovative technologies in the field of car production. To power the most modern vehicles that include electric and hybrid cars, packages of various types of lithium-ion cells are used, the number of which is constantly growing. After use, these batteries, due to their complex chemical composition, constitute hazardous waste that is difficult to manage and must be recycled in modern technological lines. The article presents the morphological characteristics of the currently used types of Li-ion cells, and the threats to the safety of people and the environment that may occur in the event of improper use of Li-ion batteries and accumulators have been identified and described on the basis of the Regulation of the European Parliament and Council (EC) No. 1272/2008 of 16 December 2008 and No. 1907/2006 of 18 December 2006 on the classification, labeling and packaging of substances and mixtures and the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals (REACH), establishing the European Chemicals Agency.