But failing to establish on-shore processing to deal with an influx of devices would present a safety risk, a study has found, with their numbers forecast to more than triple between 2024 and 2050.
The Association for the Battery Recycling Industry revealed the findings on Thursday in a report presented to politicians, stakeholders and industry representatives at Parliament House in Canberra.
It comes weeks after the NSW government introduced rules for the testing and disposal of e-bike and e-scooter batteries, and before state and federal environment ministers meet to discuss rising lithium-ion battery fires.
The Battery Materials Recovery Industry Profile report, prepared by Positive Economics, found the recycling sector contributed $2.1 billion to Australia's economy in 2025, including $760 million in direct benefits.
But by extracting and processing critical minerals from end-of-life batteries in Australia, the industry could generate $6.9 billion a year and support 34,650 jobs by 2050.
The growth would be fuelled by the rising number of end-of-life batteries, including powerful electric vehicle batteries that could be reused for energy storage or mined for minerals, association chief executive Katharine Hole said.
"There's over 1000 tonnes of EV batteries and large-format batteries that came through in the last financial year," she told AAP.
"It's going to happen faster than people think and we need to do the groundwork now."
More than 198,000 tonnes of batteries reached recycling centres in 2024, the report found, most of which were lead acid batteries used in petrol and diesel cars.
But end-of-life lithium-ion batteries, like those used in EVs, were forecast to double from more than 16,000 in 2024 to more than 46,000 in 2030.
Lithium-ion batteries were expected to outnumber lead acid devices by 2040, and reach more than 600,000 by 2050.
The batteries could be crushed into a metal dust called black mass from which metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel could be extracted.
Black mass was currently exported for processing overseas, Ms Hole said, but Australian firms could do the work and reap benefits from it with the right investments and policies in place.
The industry urgently needed rules to govern manufacturers' responsibilities for battery disposal and unregulated exports, she said, as well as a framework for their safe recycling and re-use.
"A lot of governments overseas are driving a requirement that batteries are processed domestically for global security reasons," she said.
"It's about getting the policy levers right."
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