Lime electric scooters parked in Poznan, Poland. Stock image by Alina.
Ontario-based rare earths recycler Cyclic Materials and Lime, the world’s largest provider of shared micromobility electric vehicles, announced Tuesday an agreement to recycle magnets from retired electric motors powering e-bikes and e-scooters across Canada and the United States.
The agreement marks the first at-scale recycling initiative focused on rare earth magnets in North America in the micromobility sector, the companies said. Cyclic will become Lime’s preferred recycler for rare earth magnets in North America, processing materials from over 90,000 vehicles annually, with an expected minimum of 500 tonnes of material per year.
Under the new partnership, Cyclic will recover rare-earth materials from decommissioned motors from vehicles in Lime’s US and Canadian markets. Lime currently has a fleet of more than 270,000…
