Thank you, Amber.
Good afternoon.
Trail Operations has been in business for over 125 years and has evolved to become one of the world’s largest metallurgical complexes and refineries. We directly employ 1,500 people and contribute approximately $1 billion to the local GDP. We produce 15 metals products, specialty metals and chemicals, including seven of Canada’s 31 critical minerals.
We are excited to say we recently released a report outlining the extremely low carbon footprint of our special high-grade refined zinc. The low-carbon nature of Trail’s zinc is attributable to our use of clean and renewable power from the local Waneta hydroelectric dam and the primary sourcing of concentrate from our Red Dog mine in Alaska.
In addition to our processing of mined concentrates, we are also proud of our metals recycling program, which started in 1982 with lead battery recycling and has since evolved to other materials. At Trail, each year, we currently recycle about 40,000 tonnes of lead batteries used in cars, telecommunications, medical equipment, etc.; about 5,000 tonnes of cathode ray tube glass from old TVs and monitors; about 500 tonnes of zinc alkaline batteries—these would be your Duracell or Energizer consumer batteries; and about 15,000 tonnes of secondary materials from other industries, from which we recover zinc, lead and germanium.
Over many decades, we have helped keep hundreds of thousands of tonnes of metals in use to support the circular economy and reduce environmental impacts. While recycling currently makes up 5% to 10% of our total raw material supply chain, we are continually looking to develop recycling even further. Today, we are making a modest expansion in our lead battery recycling capacity, testing the recovery of zinc from electric arc furnace dust, and exploring the potential to recycle the lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles.
The Government of Canada set a mandatory target for all new light-duty vehicles to be zero-emissions by 2035. This means Canada needs to build—and find the raw materials for—significantly more electric vehicles over the next 10 years. It also means just as many lithium-ion batteries will eventually need to be recycled.
There are several differences between the lead and lithium-ion batteries used in vehicles that are particularly important when it comes to recycling. Here are a few of these. One, a lead battery is the size of a small toaster oven and can be easily removed and replaced by you and me in our vehicle. In comparison, a lithium-ion battery pack is integral to the vehicle and weighs approximately 500 kilograms. Two, while a lead battery contains four to five elements and each is essentially the same regardless of manufacturer, a lithium-ion battery is made up of many components, including a wide variety of chemicals and elements that differ by manufacturer. Three, most lithium-ion batteries today contain lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese, which are all listed as Canadian critical minerals.
There is a well-established circular economy around lead batteries. However, a full lithium-ion battery recycling value chain does not currently exist in Canada or anywhere in North America. While a lithium battery circular economy is starting to develop in North America, there are still key questions to be answered regarding effective recycling technologies, evolving battery chemistry, ownership of the battery, and the regulatory framework.
That being said, we see this as a major opportunity not only for Teck but also for Canada in being first movers in this space, despite the significant capital investment required to establish a circular economy for the lithium-ion battery industry.
With that, I will now turn it back over to Amber to conclude our opening remarks.