Battery waste is a growing issue worldwide. Currently, billions of batteries are produced every year with no real way to recycle or reuse them in commercial products.
Lime, one of the global leaders in micro-mobility, has decided to do something for the planet. The micro-mobility company has signed a partnership with Gomi, a British company specializing in the design of high-tech products made from recycled material.
Thanks to the partnership, Gomi will be able to give Lime’s early-generation retired e-bike batteries a second life, transforming them into beautiful, zero-waste portable Bluetooth speakers. This revolutionary, earth-friendly portable speaker is handmade from recycled plastic waste saved from landfills and powered by 100% repurposed e-bike batteries.
Around 50,000 battery cells from over 1,000 old e-bikes are upcycled to build the Gomi Speaker with 20 hours of battery life. According to Lime, the used batteries are carefully removed, cleaned, and rigorously tested for capacity, before being used to create the new range of speakers.
The Gomi Speaker is a 25W speaker that weighs just 800 grams and can be fully charged in two hours using USB-C fast charging. It can be paired together to create a stereo system. Clean, refined sound and 20-hour battery life make the speakers perfect for indoors or outdoors. They also come with a ‘repairs-for-life’ return service to “ensure they never need to be thrown away unnecessarily.”
The Bluetooth speakers are available in four colors – Lime Green, Black Mono, Blue Ocean, and Birthday Cake. Gomi has also launched the crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for the limited edition Bluetooth speaker, priced starting at £99 (around $138).
“We designed the Gomi Speakers to be a breath of fresh air into the world of environmentally-friendly consumer tech,” Tom Meades, co-founder of Gomi, said. “We’re the first company to create fully-circular tech products made from post-consumer waste materials that would usually end up in landfill, giving them a second life. We’re on a mission to prove that tech can be environmentally-friendly, fully-circular, whilst also being high-performance and aesthetic.”
With this partnership with Gomi, Lime is extending the lifespan of its batteries, which makes it possible to reduce the final carbon footprint. It’s better for the environment to upcycle lithium-ion batteries as much as possible before eventually recycling them into new batteries.
