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Anyone know how recoverable Lithium is from Lithium batts? Does the Lithium degrade/denature/deconstruct over time in all lithium batteries? How bad for the environment is all the Lithium we are throwing out with all these used up batteries?
(Though the guy was drinking the stuff as a supplement, which probably affected his personality a bit)
Are they the same lithium salts that are prescribed as medication for certain psychological disorders?
Dunno if modern medications may also include other active-ingredients to compliment lithium, but lithium itself is pretty much the same thing as sodium or potassium in terms of its simplicity as a chemical species.
Since lithium has a +1 charge as a cation (positively charged ion) in salt, it needs to be balanced with an anion (negatively charged ion), so the exact salt can vary in solid-form. But once it dissolves in water, such as in the body, then it's not really bound to the anion anymore and so the exact anion it was originally ingested with isn't particularly important.
Apparently some people used to drink [mineral water with lithium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithia_water).
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_(medication)
Seems possible; not sure of economic value at this particular point in history. There's a bunch of recent headlines about trivial extraction of lithium from seawater, so might get less economically feasible if those techs pan out. OTOH, even if it's not obviously worth it, you could try burying it all in one place and then 'mine' it once the economics swing towards recovery.