Let me pull a pro nuclear style argument. Future batteries won't need rare earth metals. Actually this isn't a fair comparison. Batteries that don't need rare earth metals already exist today. Thorium reactors or next gen nuclear plants don't exist at all.
Kinda missing the point. We already live with way more dangerous material than nuclear. Only difference is that most toxic stuff kills us slowly, so we don't notice.
Even if new batteries are made of non toxic and recyclable materials, our phones, our electronic is littered with it. And future materials are probably going to be even more exotic.
Not only that, but the only reason nuclear waste is dangerous is that it's radioactive. That is, it's a radiating source of energy. In other words, nuclear waste is dangerous because it's full of unused energy.
The French use breeder reactors to extract this unused energy for more energy. We are literally choosing not to burn all of the nuclear material we have.
It's like taking a train that's got 20 cars full of coal, burning the coal in the first car, and then disposing the "waste coal" in the rest of the cars in a landfill while wringing our hands about the environmental problems that causes.
How long is nuclear waste toxic? 92% for 40 years, 0.2% for thousands of years.