With decarbonization and waste reduction priority goals of government and their partners, the recycling of metals, plastics, paper, glass, and e-waste among other materials have become key activities. Indeed, entire industry segments have been developed around collection and refining. While gains have been made (for instance, in 1960, only 7% of US products were recycled) today that figure is 35%, so there is still a lot of room for a great improvement.
Some metals (copper, steel, aluminum) are already developing recycling streams for the collection, reprocessing, and production of secondary sources of material. Other materials, especially those used for high value applications like lithium and cobalt (for instance in certain electrical and energy storage systems) are seeing great strides in developing cost-effective and secure recycling streams. However, there are challenges. A living case study is copper.
Since the early 2000’s, most copper scrap generated in the US has been sent offshore for processing, partly due to the closure of secondary smelter capacity. This means that copper scrap, in its various forms, could not be refined to a high-grade recycled product necessary for most downstream applications or products. In recent years, some additional smelting capacity has either been brought on-line or is planned, but not enough to offset the tonnage generated for export.
This situation is further complicated by two important matters. One, countries such as China are increasingly unwilling to take offshore scrap of any type, and two, the US is increasingly regarding metal supplies as a source to possibly offset needed future demand, demand necessary for the energy transition toward a decarbonized electrical grid. However, as of today, the means to process all US domestic scrap product is simply not available.
This tension, to increase recycled materials percentages while systems or capacity is not available, faced with the established deadlines regarding recycling mandates and targets, will play out in the coming years.
Thank you, and until next time!
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