Lime Partners with Redwood Materials to Recycle Scooter and E-Bike Batteries in U.S. and Europe.
Shared micromobility leader Lime has announced a new partnership with Redwood Materials, a leading battery recycling company, to process and recover critical minerals from its electric scooters and e-bikes. The collaboration, unveiled Monday, marks a significant step toward building a circular battery supply chain and advancing Lime’s sustainability goals.
Under the agreement, Redwood Materials will become Lime’s exclusive battery recycling partner in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands. Although the deal does not currently extend to all global regions where Lime operates—including Asia, Australia, and parts of Europe—it represents the company’s first direct recycling relationship in North America.
Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, specializes in extracting and refining key minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper from end-of-life batteries. These materials are then returned to the battery manufacturing ecosystem, reducing the need for mining and helping close the loop in battery production.
“This collaboration marks significant progress toward establishing a more circular supply chain, helping ensure our batteries are not only responsibly recycled once they reach their end of life, but that their materials are returned into the battery supply chain,” said Andrew Savage, VP of Sustainability at Lime.
Lime previously worked with vendors like Sprout through downstream partners but lacked a direct relationship with a recycler in the U.S. Redwood’s integrated approach allows Lime to better track materials recovery and support transparent, scalable recycling practices.
The partnership complements Lime’s broader sustainability agenda, which includes a pledge to fully decarbonize its business by 2030. From its 2019 baseline, Lime has reduced Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 59.5%. The company is set to publish its 2024 carbon emissions data in May.
Beyond recycling, Lime has also established “second life” programs for viable battery cells through partnerships with companies like Gomi in the U.K. and VoltR in France. These programs repurpose batteries for use in consumer electronics, including portable speakers and power packs.
Redwood Materials is also recycling batteries for other micromobility players such as Lyft, Rad Power Bikes, and Specialized. With over $2 billion raised in private funding, Redwood continues to expand its operations, recently opening an R&D center in San Francisco.
The Lime–Redwood partnership reflects a broader industry push to build greener, more sustainable micromobility ecosystems—not just through electrification, but also through end-of-life battery management and material reuse.
