Reverse Supply Chain Sourcing: How Battery Recyclers and Industrial Buyers Like Cummins Build Trust in Recovered Materials

Sheri Hinish, Founder and CEO of Supply Chain Queen® and the #1 Global Supply Chain Influencer, hosts episode three of the Circular Supply Chain Coalition series on the Supply Chain Revolution® podcast. This episode unpacks the matchmaking layer that connects reverse supply chain operators with industrial buyers — the mechanism that turns recovered critical minerals into qualified, repeatable supply. Featuring Ryan Melsert of American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), Rafael Vasquez Lombardo of Cummins, and CSCC co-founder Anita Schwartz.

Why Reverse Supply Chain Matchmaking Is the Missing Layer in the Circular Economy

Recovering a material is only the beginning. The circular economy will not scale until the relationship between the operator who recovers a critical mineral and the industrial buyer who needs to qualify and procure it is as structured, repeatable, and commercially rigorous as any other sourcing relationship. That matchmaking layer — connecting what is recovered with what can actually be used — is the subject of this episode.

This is episode three of a five-part series produced in partnership between Pyxera Global, the Circular Supply Chain Coalition (CSCC), and Supply Chain Queen®. The series traces the arc from coalition building to community-owned reverse supply chains. Episode three moves from the network architecture explored in earlier episodes into the operating mechanism that turns relationships into action: the CSCC Buyer Consortium.

How Battery Recyclers Turn Waste into Buyer-Ready Critical Mineral Supply

Ryan Melsert is the co-founder and CTO of American Battery Technology Company (ABTC). His career began at Tesla, where he was part of the initial team that designed and built the first gigafactory in the world outside Reno, Nevada. After years of watching manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries pile up in production facilities, Melsert and a group of colleagues left to form ABTC. They built their own battery recycling facility, and that plant has been running for approximately three years.

On the podcast, Ryan explains the spectrum of value in battery recycling. At the low end, companies can do coarse mechanical processing and sell mixed material or "black mass" as an intermediate commodity. The requirements are relatively low, and the material can be sold to virtually any refiner. At the high end, producers refine recovered material into battery-grade metals and active cathode materials — products that must meet the same exacting specifications as virgin material. The further up the value chain a recycler goes, the more rigorous the qualification process and the higher the value of the output.

ABTC chose the high end. After a six-month evaluation of every battery recycler in North America, BASF — one of the largest chemical companies and cathode manufacturers in the world — selected ABTC as its exclusive battery recycling partner for all of North America. That partnership required ABTC to demonstrate that its recovered metals could meet the same quality and consistency standards that BASF demands from primary mineral sources. ABTC is also constructing a 30,000-ton-per-year lithium refinery from its own mine in central Nevada, because even with recycling at full capacity, the growth rate of battery demand means recovered material alone cannot fill the supply gap.

What Industrial Buyers Like Cummins Need Before Sourcing Recovered Materials

Rafael Vasquez Lombardo leads sustainability strategy and customer solutions at Cummins, a 100-plus-year industrial manufacturer based in Columbus, Indiana, with global remanufacturing operations. Rafael's career at Cummins has spanned product engineering, manufacturing operations, distribution networks, and circular economy strategy. That cross-functional path gives him an unusual vantage point on what it takes to bring recovered materials into established industrial supply chains.

On the podcast, Rafael lays out what he calls the performance-cost-trust triangle that governs material sourcing decisions at a company like Cummins. Performance comes first: does the recovered material meet the engineering specifications and deliver consistent, repeatable results at production volume? These are not fast-fashion products. Cummins components operate over long durability cycles, and an hour of unexpected downtime in some applications can translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue for the customer. Cost follows closely, but cost is not just price. It includes supply continuity, supplier risk, and total cost of ownership. Trust is the third dimension. With established suppliers, trust is built over years of procurement cycles, audits, and demonstrated reliability. With new recovered material sources, that trust must be earned through the same validation rigor — there are no shortcuts.

Rafael describes the validation process in concrete terms: it begins with identifying a real problem to solve, moves through a pilot phase, then into prototyping where engineering teams test recovered materials within the context of actual components against established specifications. NDAs and information-sharing agreements must be in place. Existing supplier contracts and commercial agreements must be respected. The process is rigorous because it has to be, and Rafael makes clear that recovered material sources will be subjected to exactly the same level of scrutiny as incumbent suppliers.

Why the Qualification Process for Recovered Materials Will Not Get Shorter

One of the most important exchanges in the episode comes when Sheri asks Ryan whether the qualification cycle for recovered materials will shorten as circular sourcing becomes more commonplace. His answer is direct: it will not. The consumer has zero tolerance for component failure. Whether the end product is an electric vehicle, a cell phone, or a grid-scale battery, the quality bar is absolute. That means the qualification process upstream must remain equally rigorous, regardless of whether the material is virgin or recovered.

Ryan also emphasizes that the supplier relationship is continuous, not transactional. ABTC's counterparts at customer organizations communicate almost daily. Audits, quality reports, facility tours, and capacity reviews are ongoing. Automakers and battery cell companies visit ABTC's plant every other week. The high-touch, auditable nature of this ongoing engagement is precisely what reinforces the high-trust environment that buyers like Cummins require.

How the Circular Supply Chain Coalition Connects Operators and Buyers at Scale

Anita Schwartz, co-founder of the CSCC, anchors the conversation by explaining how the coalition moves from broad industry convening into pointed, operational matchmaking. The shift is from raising awareness to solving specific problems: identifying a buyer's constraints, understanding where supply chain risk lives, and then connecting the right recovery operators to build solutions. Critically, the CSCC model extends this connectivity beyond the original equipment manufacturer to include their tier-one and tier-two suppliers as well, because circular supply chains do not stop at the OEM's front door.

The CSCC Buyer Consortium exists to create the missing data layer in reverse supply chains — the infrastructure that connects what is recovered with what is needed, where it is needed, and at what specification. As Rafael notes in the lightning round, the single most important piece of data for making reverse supply chain matchmaking work is "location, location, location": where the material is needed and where it can be found. Ryan's answer is equally revealing: actual demand from customers, whether that demand is meaningful or lip service. Both answers point to the same gap the CSCC is designed to close.

Stop Talking About Circular Sourcing: This Is Just Sourcing

The lightning round at the end of the episode delivers the single most important reframe for anyone working to normalize recovered materials in industrial procurement. When asked what companies should stop doing when they talk about circular sourcing, Rafael's answer is immediate: "Stop talking about circular sourcing. This is just sourcing. Let's make it actually mainstream."

That line captures the thesis of the entire episode. When circular sourcing is treated as a separate category, it signals that recovered materials are different, riskier, less proven. When it is treated as sourcing — subject to the same performance specifications, the same validation rigor, the same commercial agreements — it becomes mainstream. That is what ABTC has done with BASF, what Cummins is building into its procurement processes, and what the CSCC is designed to enable across industries.

Ryan adds a complementary perspective on optimism: the fundamentals of recovered material sourcing can deliver lower cost than primary materials, creating a real economic foundation beneath the circular model. Rafael closes with the observation that global supply chain fragility and geopolitical concentration are creating appetite for nearshoring and localized material flows — conditions that structurally favor circular sourcing.

Sheri Hinish is the Founder and CEO of Supply Chain Queen® and host of the Supply Chain Revolution® podcast. She previously served as EY's Global Consulting Leader for Sustainability, Technology, and Ecosystems and as a Senior Executive at IBM. She holds advanced degrees from Harvard University and Rutgers University and is recognized as the #1 Global Supply Chain Influencer, a Top 250 Global Leader in Sustainability, and a Top 100 Woman in Supply Chain and Technology. The circular economy, critical minerals recovery, and regenerative supply chain strategy are central themes of her advisory and media work.

Connect and Learn More

American Battery Technology Company: americanbatterytechnology.com  |  Cummins: cummins.com  |  CSCC: circularsupplychain.org  |  Pyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.org