If we hope to scale up production of clean energy technology, we’re going to need more lithium. The metal is used to build batteries—the kind that power everything from electric vehicles to smartphones. Unfortunately, while lithium may be helping us to ditch fossil fuels, its extraction can wreak havoc on the environment and harm communities living nearby. Here’s how—and what we should do about it.

How does lithium mining work?

Lithium is typically mined from rock or clay, or extracted from brine water beneath salt flats. In the case of the latter, operators pump the water into massive ponds, then wait for it to evaporate under the desert sun so they can separate out the lithium. For the mining industry, this has become the most cost-efficient way to get lithium out of the brine. For local wildlife and communities, it’s a different story.

So exactly what damage does extraction cause?

This mining process is rapidly robbing regions of their limited groundwater, which is used for drinking as well as agricultural and pastoral practices. It’s estimated that around 2 million liters of water must be evaporated for every ton of lithium produced. Now consider that the global demand for lithium is expected to rise to 2.1 million tons annually by 2030. Extraction also drains wetlands, critical habitat for migratory birds and other threatened wildlife species.

How are local people impacted?

In South America, the lithium-rich Atacama Plateau—a unique area spanning northern Chile, northwestern Argentina, and southwestern Bolivia—is home to the Atacameño and other Indigenous Peoples. Their lands are already scarred from long histories of mining. Even now, the mining companies rarely meaningfully consult native communities before exploiting the resources they rely on—which goes against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Plus, local people do not always benefit from the industry’s profits or the technology lithium is helping to build. Instead, they have to watch as their ways of life—like their ability to grow food, raise livestock, or carry out ancestral ceremonies—dry up with the water.

Are there any solutions?

Yes. For one, we can invest in cleaner and more efficient ways to obtain lithium, like geothermal extraction or battery recycling—a sustainable technology ripe for innovation. And governments should mandate the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous and local communities who are impacted by mining, while prioritizing and incorporating Indigenous knowledge and science of local ecosystems into operations. We must also strengthen environmental standards and oversight of mining operations—including by the companies who purchase the batteries within their supply chains. In short: There’s a way to do this that’s both just and doesn’t hurt the planet.

Learn more about the impacts of lithium mining on Chile’s Indigenous communities and then read NRDC’s report on how to protect the Atacama Plateau and its residents.

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