Metal Recycling : Opportunities, Limits, Infrastructure

Metal recycling is a complex business that is becoming increasingly difficult. This report discusses how to increase metal-recycling rates – and thus resource efficiency – from both quantity and quality viewpoints. The discussion is based on data about recycling input, and the technological infrastructure and worldwide economic realities of recycling.

Metal recycling is a complex business that is becoming increasingly difficult! Recycling started long ago, when people realized that it was more resource- and cost-efficient than just throwing away the resources and starting all over again. In this report, we discuss how to increase metal-recycling rates – and thus resource efficiency – from both quantity and quality viewpoints. The discussion is based on data about recycling input, and the technological infrastructure and worldwide economic realities of recycling. Decision-makers set increasingly ambitious targets for recycling, but far too much valuable metal today is lost because of the imperfect collection of end-of-life (EoL) products, improper practices, or structural deficiencies within the recycling chain, which hinder achieving our goals of high resource efficiency and resource security, and of better recycling rates.