A few years ago, Li-Cycle was one of the biggest players in electric vehicle battery recycling in North America, providing a roadmap to a circular, sustainable economy for electric vehicles. 

But just last month, the Toronto-based company filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada after years of struggling to get a facility off the ground in Rochester, N.Y. The company said the planned hub would have been able to extract lithium and other critical minerals from recycled material to a…