By Nikola Neufeld

The recent increase in electric-vehicle (EV) use shows a promising future for carbon-free transportation, but it also generates hazardous waste through end-of-life lithium-ion batteries.[1] By 2030, millions of tons of EV batteries will reach the end of their use, posing risks of combustion, soil contamination, and metal toxicity in drinking water if improperly managed.[2] From a legal perspective, addressing this challenge requires more than increased recycling infrastructure. It also requires up-to-date legislation and legal frameworks capable of governing transboundary waste management, producer responsibility, and circular end-of-life resource economies. The European Union and United States currently outline two distinct regulatory frameworks. The EU internalizes its waste industries and adheres to the goals of international legal frameworks such as the Basel Convention, while the U.S. resists the global shift towards circular economies and strays away from international cooperation.

The Basel Convention and the U.S. Enforcement Gap

Adopted in 1989, the Basel Convention establishes a global regulatory structure to ensure that hazardous waste is disposed of “in the State where [it was] generated.”[3] In 1999, the Basel Convention added a supplementary agreement, the Protocol on Liability and Compensation, which aimed to create a legal structure for accidents involving transboundary movement of hazardous waste.[4] The Protocol established a system which identifies global actors liable for environmental damage through improper waste dumping and ensures compensation for personal and property damage along with providing costs of preventive measures to stop improper waste dumping.[5] Basel also introduced a 2019 Ban Amendment which prohibits exports of hazardous waste from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to non-OECD countries.[6] The Convention’s ultimate goal is for each State to have a sovereign right to ban foreign waste imports and take on a duty to manage waste in an environmentally conscious manner.[7]

The United States signed but never ratified Basel and therefore it is not bound by the Ban Amendment nor the 1999 Protocol on Liability and Compensation.[8] Instead, the U.S. relies on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) as its primary document dictating hazardous waste management.[9] Under § 6938, RCRA permits hazardous waste exports pursuant to bilateral or OECD agreements, such as with Mexico or Canada.[10] RCRA requires exporters of waste to provide advanced notice and obtain consent from the receiving country, identifying the facility and shipment details.[11]

At the federal level, there is no statute specifically governing end-of-life EV batteries. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates them under RCRA and the Universal Waste Program, which consolidates collection and transport of certain hazardous material to ease the “regulatory burden on . . . generators that wish to collect these wastes.”[12] Several states are beginning to adopt their own methods to waste management akin to those we see on a national scale. California created the Lithium-Ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group in 2018,[13] which helped set up statutory frameworks like the Responsible Battery Recycling Act of 2022, establishing producer-responsibility programs for batteries and battery-embedded products, signaling a gradual shift toward circular waste management.[14] While such state initiatives signal progress, the absence of a unified federal framework leaves the United States without the cohesive, circular model emerging in other major economies.

Under its current regulatory framework, the United States continues to perpetuate downstream disposal in developing countries while also participating in the global waste economy primarily as a producer; thus, undermining both the global environmental justice efforts and the economic opportunity of end-of-life material recovery markets.

The European Union Circulatory Framework

Within recent years, the European Union has embedded Basel’s principles within its legislative scheme. The Waste Framework Directive, amended in 2018, shifts EU waste policy from disposal toward resource recovery and reuse, establishing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs that make producers financially and operationally responsible for managing products at the end of their life cycle.[15] Recital (7) of the directive explicitly highlights the circular-economy objective of reducing dependence on imported raw materials and increasing recycling and recovery of pre-used resources.[16] Pertaining specifically to EV batteries, the EU’s Battery Regulation 2023/1542 executes these principles through enforceable lifecycle regulations for EV battery producers.[17] By 2031, EV batteries sold in the EU must contain minimum percentages of recycled cobalt, lithium, and nickel.[18] Each battery must also carry a digital “battery passport” disclosing its composition, recycled content, and carbon footprint.[19] In doing so, the EU is on its way to creating a cohesive, unified, legal model for greener circular waste economies, especially for end-of-life EV batteries; a system that contrasts sharply with the United States’ fragmented approach under RCRA.

Comparative Analysis

When viewed side-by-side, these regimes reveal a clear legal divergence of the intended future of renewable materials. The European Union codified circular-economy principles into binding law that applies uniformly across Member States, integrating strict export controls, producer responsibility, and hazardous waste minimization. The United States, by contrast, continues to regulate under a statute (RCRA) drafted in and designed for a 1970s industrial economy. Despite its recent amendments, RCRA continues to promote a linear, disposal-based waste management that treats hazardous waste primarily as an endpoint rather than a potential resource.[20] Under the current structure, U.S. regulations remain fragmented by states, nationally dependent on export markets to manage its waste, and ultimately will rely more foreign markets for recycled materials.[21]

This divergence draws up legitimate economic concerns. U.S. recyclers and manufacturers are increasingly becoming excluded from Basel-compliant supply chains, while compliant nations, such as the EU and Canada, have moved to internalize their waste markets and develop new industries around recycled content, material recovery, and closed-loop manufacturing.[22] China’s 2020 Solid Waste Law banned most foreign waste imports, reflecting a broader shift toward domestic waste management systems, specifically from nations who used to be wase importers.[23] Other nations, including Malaysia and Thailand, have also started to reject global waste shipments on environmental grounds, turning their waste industries inwards.[24] These global policy shifts show how the United States could be isolated with its outdated, export-dependent model.

By continuing to externalize the environmental costs of its own production and consumption, the United States also risks eroding its credibility in international environmental governance. As the global waste sector transitions toward traceable, closed-loop waste recovery systems, the absence of a cohesive, federal circular framework may weaken its position in the emerging green-technology economy and suppress domestic innovation in the renewable energy sector.[25]

Conclusion

The EV revolution cannot credibly be called sustainable if the batteries that power it become the next generation of hazardous waste harming both people and the planet. As EV adoption accelerates, millions of lithium-ion batteries will reach end-of-life in the U.S. and simply be disposed without a cohesive national framework for collection, recycling, or reuse. By ratifying the Basel Convention and adopting legislation modeled on the EU’s Battery Regulation, Congress could transform the RCRA into a modern piece of legislation that looks towards clean-energy accountability and economic innovation. Such reform would establish a national extended-producer-responsibility program, create digital traceability for EV batteries, and promote domestic recycling industries to recover materials which can be reused for U.S. manufacturing, limiting material imports while also making the US a recycled material exporter. Whether the circular economy method ultimately offers the most efficient or equitable model for waste governance remains to be seen as the EU, China, and other global superpowers are just beginning their shift towards a circular structure. But the fact remains that inaction risks leaving the United States out of a growing industry born from its own waste.

[1]Amjad Ali et al., Sustainable Recycling of End-of-Life Electric Vehicle Batteries: EV Battery Recycling Frameworks in China and the USA, 10 Recycling 68, 76 (2025).

[2] Jay N. Meegoda et al., End-of-Life Management of Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Batteries in the United States, 4 Clean Technol. 1162 (2022).

[3] Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, Mar. 22, 1989, 1673 U.N.T.S. 57, Preamble.

[4] Draft Protocol on Liability and Compensation for Damage Resulting from Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, Basel Convention  (Dec. 10, 1999), https://www.basel.int/TheConvention/Overview/LiabilityProtocol/ProtocolArchive/tabid/2400/Default.aspx.

[5] Id.

[6] Basel Convention, supra note 3, at Preamble, Annex VII (amended 2019).

[7] Id.

[8]  Status of Ratifications, Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, United Nations Treaty Collection (last visited Oct. 12, 2025)., https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXVII-3&chapter=27&clang=_en.

[9] Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. §§ 6901–6992k (2018).

[10] Export of hazardous wastes, 42 U.S.C. § 6938(a), (f).

[11] Id.

[12] Universal Waste, U.S. EPA (last visited Oct. 12, 2025), https://www.epa.gov/hw/universal-waste (includes regulations for battery waste).

[13] Lithium-Ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group, CalEPA (last visited Oct. 12, 2025), https://calepa.ca.gov/lithium-ion-car-battery-recycling-advisory-group/.

[14] Christopher Smith, Esq., et al., CalRecycle & AB 2440 — What Battery Producers Need to Know, Greenspoon Marder LLP (June 9, 2025), https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3fb67b15-7c13-42e2-b4ef-312294a382c3.

[15] Directive 2018/851, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018, amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, 2018 O.J. (L 150) 109.

[16] Id. at recital (7).

[17] Regulation 2023/1542 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2023 on Batteries and Waste Batteries, 2023 O.J. (L 191) 5, Annex I.

[18] Id. at Annexes I, VI.

[19] Id. at art. 65–67.

[20] Meegoda et al., supra note 2, at 1163.

[21] Id.

[22] Meegoda et al., supra note 2, at 1163, 1169.

[23] China to Ban All Imports of Solid Waste From 2021, Ministry of Ecology & Env’t of the People’s Republic of China (Nov. 30, 2020), https://english.mee.gov.cn/News_service/media_news/202011/t20201130_810429.shtml.

[24] Colin Staub, Malaysia to Fully Halt U.S. E-Plastic Imports, Resource Recycling (June 26, 2025), https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2025/06/26/malaysia-to-fully-halt-us-e-plastic-imports/; see also Rebecca Ratcliffe, Thailand Bans Imports of Plastic Waste to Curb Toxic Pollution, Guardian (Jan. 7, 2025), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/07/thailand-bans-imports-plastic-waste-curb-toxic-pollution.

[25] Fazal Ur Rehman et al., The Nexus Between Circular Economy Innovation, Market Competitiveness, and Triple Bottom Line Efficiencies Among SMEs: Evidence from Emerging Economies, 30 Envt’l. Sci. & Pollution Res. 122274, 122277 (2023).