Cyclic to recycle rare earths from retiring fleet motors across North America.

Leveraging a 270,000-vehicle micromobility fleet nearing retirement, rare earth recycler Cyclic Materials Inc. has joined forces with Lime to harvest and process the neodymium-iron-boron magnets from its soon-to-be decommissioned e-bike and scooter motors across North America, inaugurating the first large-scale magnet recycling program for shared electric vehicles and unlocking a new urban stream of critical rare earth elements.

Established in 2021, Canada-based Cyclic Materials has moved swiftly from proof-of-concept to commercial scale, devising proprietary processes that recover and refine rare earth magnets salvaged from hard drives, vehicle motors, and other end-of-life components.

Backed by climate-focused investors and preparing a $20 million recycling plant in Arizona to complement its Ontario pilot hub, the recycler aims to anchor a North American supply chain long dependent on overseas sources of these critical elements.

Operating a fleet of nearly 300,000 electric bikes and scooters in cities across 30 countries, San Francisco-headquartered Lime has spent the past eight years weaving micromobility into urban transport networks, slashing carbon emissions by nearly 60% since 2019 while working toward net-zero by 2030.

To deepen that commitment, Lime has established refurbishment hubs that harvest batteries, frames, and electronics from retiring vehicles for reuse or recycling, embedding circular design principles into each model update and setting annual targets for recovered materials tracked in its public sustainability reports.

With an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 of Lime's U.S. and Canadian e-bikes and scooters expected to reach end-of-life during 2025, the latest partnership will channel those retiring motors to Cyclic Materials facilities in Kingston and, once online, the planned Arizona plant for rare earth magnet recovery.

"Cyclic is excited to partner with Lime, a company demonstrating what true circularity looks like in action," said Cyclic Materials CEO Ahmad Ghahreman. "This partnership sets a powerful precedent for how innovative companies can close critical loops in the clean energy supply chain through the recycling of the permanent magnets that power modern mobility."

Scheduled to begin within weeks, initial motor shipments will move by road and rail to Cyclic's Kingston hub, where they will be dismantled and their magnets refined into mixed rare earth oxides.

"We are proud to support Lime's bold net-zero and sustainability goals, while helping build a future where materials are recycled and reused, sustaining a more resilient supply for rare earth elements across the industry," said Ghahreman.

Industry analysis suggests that less than 1% of rare earth magnets are presently recycled worldwide, leaving more than 43,000 metric tons of end-of-life magnets projected to accumulate as potential waste in the United States by 2035.

Intercepting a share of that above-ground resource through the Lime fleet provides an early demonstration of how coordinated fleet management can reinforce domestic mineral security while reducing environmental impact.

"Circularity is a core part of our sustainability mission," said Lime Vice President of Sustainability Andrew Savage. "Partnering with Cyclic Materials helps us take a meaningful step towards enhancing the recovery of already-processed materials and placing them for reuse back into the supply chain."

Under the agreement, refurbishment centers will palletize whole motors for shipment, allowing Cyclic to capture magnets with minimal extra handling while enabling Lime to document material recovery side by side with ridership, emissions, and safety metrics in forthcoming impact reports.

"Through Cyclic's innovative approach, we are able to give new life to critical materials from decommissioned electric motors, increasing the recovery of these materials through the end-of-life process and, hopefully, supporting such practices to scale across electric mobility and beyond," finished Savage.

Anticipated ramp-up through 2025 will inform expansion of the model to additional Lime territories as successive vehicle generations retire, offering a template other micromobility operators can adopt to transform city streets into a steady pipeline of critical minerals and strengthen North American supply chains for the energy transition.