Chinese analysts have compared the growing threat of waste lithium batteries to the ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis’ that swamped the world’s cities in the late 1800s.
The 19th century crisis, caused by dung coming from the colossal number of horses that were needed for transport, led to a prediction in The Times newspaper of London that ‘in 50 years every street in the capital will be buried under nine feet of manure’.