That's no surprise. Your infant is likely being fed and cared for. Probably doesn't have to compete with NIMBYs. And it's probably not competing with over-subsidized megacorps for scraps.
Lithium isn't terribly rare, and li-ion batteries can be recycled and all of its contents can be reused in the production of new batteries.
Lead acid car batteries are already collected for recycling at very high rates in most areas, so there's no reason why li-ion car batteries wouldn't be collected and recycled as well.
The people working on this need to stop, sit down, and have a long, hard think about what they're doing. And about how ultimately this will be used to persecute and gill gay men.