Assessing the recycling efficiency of copper from end-of-life products in Western Europe

Recognizing that the recycling of copper and its alloying elements is often not well documented or fully understood, this paper quantifies the end-of-life recycling efficiency rate of copper using the copper flow model developed by the International Copper Study Group (ICSG). The model is complemented by results from a flow study for Western Europe in 1999. The ICSG model is based on a simultaneous use of a “Lifetime Approach” (based on historical end use data and average product lifetimes), an “End-of-Life Approach” (based on reported, measured or estimated end-of-life product flows) and a “Scrap Balance Approach (based on reported scrap use data). The “Lifetime Approach” predicts a copper reservoir in use of ∼78 million tonnes of copper and alloys for Western Europe. For 1999, it was estimated that the copper scrap availability and the old scrap recovery amounted to ∼2.7 million tonnes and ∼1.6 million tonnes of copper and alloys, respectively. The corresponding end-of-life recycling efficiency rate for end-of-life copper and copper alloy products in Western Europe in 1999 was estimated to be around 63% in the end-of-life approach, 64% in the lifetime approach, and 67% according to the scrap balance approach excluding outflows to other metal loops, and 69%, 70%, and 73%, respectively, including all identified outflows to other metal recycling loops.