The challenge of open cycles - Barriers to a closed loop economy demonstrated for consumer electronics and cars Christian Hagelüken1 1
Umicore AG & Co KG, Precious Metals Refining, D-63457 Hanau, Germany
[email protected]
Abstract Legislation like the “End-of-Life Vehicle Directive” or the “WEEE directive” aim - among others - at saving natural resources through improved reuse and material recovery. Considerable efforts have been undertaken successfully to develop efficient recycling technologies for cars and electronics to “close the loop”. The “recycling society” in this context is a frequently used keyword, which seems to indicate that we have already made considerable progress in this direction. In reality however, especially for cars and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), we are far away from achieving high recycling rates for important “trace elements” along the entire lifecycle of these products. The reasons don’t mainly lay in technological shortfalls but in the structural deficits of “open cycles”. In a research project, jointly conducted by Umicore Precious Metals Refining and Germany's Öko-Institut on lifecycle efficiencies of platinum group metals (PGM), it could be shown, that in many industrial applications (e.g. chemical catalysis) PGM lifecycle-efficiencies > 90% are achieved, while in the autocatalyst and electronics applications more than 60% of PGMs are inevitably lost along the lifecycle. A number of reasons play a role here. Most important are the breaching of system boundaries - used & EOL products are exported from Europe to developing and transition countries, where recycling probability is very low - and the dissemination/dilution effect of trace elements in the end-product, which negatively impacts their efficient recyclability. This publication elaborates the approach of “closed and open cycles” and shows that besides precious metals other important metals like indium, bismuth, tin, etc. face the same difficulties. Moreover, requirements for a “global recycling society” are defined to address today’s reality of global flows of used consumer products, taking into account the likely needs of the future. Keywords: Recycling society, MFA, electronic scrap, precious metals, resource recovery.
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Introduction
On December 21st, 2005 the European Commission proposed a new strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste. A press release stated: “This long-term strategy aims to help Europe to become a recycling society that seeks to avoid waste and uses waste as resources. It will draw on the knowledge that the thematic strategy on resources, also adopted today, will generate” [1]. Over the last years, waste and resource management has regained significant attention. The price development for crude oil and the continuing economic growth especially in Asia with its huge demand also for metals resulted in a remarkable price rally, bringing back to the attention that resources are not unlimited. The public discussion on scarcity of natural resources has already been triggered for the first time in 1972 by the Club of Rome’s “The limits to growth” publication, but then widely calmed down for almost two decades. But in early 2006 a publication by Gordon et al. [2] pointed out that resources for some key metals
Source: Hilty, L. M., Edelmann, X., Ruf, A. (eds.): R'07 World Congress - Recovery of Materials and Energy for Resource Efficiency, Sept. 2007, Davos, Switzerland. Empa Materials Science and Technology, St.Gallen 2007, ISBN 978-3-905594-49-2
might be depleted in mid term if today’s developed country level of metal use intensity becomes valid worldwide. Near complete recycling of metals already used in products is seen as a key requirement to avoid such a situation. Also today’s climate change discussion has a link to the need to improve recycling efforts, since the energy demand needed to produce metals from recycled products is only a fraction of what is needed to get the same metals from mining operations. [3]. So at first sight, with the EU Commission’s strive for a “recycling society” and supportive legislative measures like the Directive on End-of-life Vehicles (ELV) from September 2000 and the Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) from January 2003, everything seems to be on the right track, the closed loop for most metals could be expected to become reality soon. Article 1 (objectives) of the WEEE-directive states: “The purpose of this Directive is, as a first priority, the prevention of waste electrical and electronic equipment, and in addition, the reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of such wastes so as to reduce the disposal of waste. It also seeks to improve the environmental performance of all operators involved in the life cycle of electrical and electronic equipment, e.g. producers, distributors and consumers and in particular those operators directly involved in the treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment.”[4] A very similar article is contained in the ELV directive. Moreover, the European Recycling Industry has developed efficient recycling technologies and built up appropriate treatment capacities, consumer awareness is relatively high and high resource prices provide incentives for recycling. So can we lean back and relax? Unfortunately not, in spite of a number of favourable frame conditions we are still far away from achieving the “recycling society”.
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Impact factors on metal recycling rates
Vehicles as well as electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) play a significant role in the use of metals, in terms of variety of substances involved, but also concerning the absolute demand for metals. Lead (car batteries), tin (solders), precious metals (catalysts, electronics), cobalt (rechargeable batteries), indium (LCD screens) are examples for metals, whose use is dominated by cars and EEE, also copper plays an important role. In theory, thus the directives on ELV and WEEE should lead to high recycling rates of these metals. However, in reality this is – so far – not the case. How successful metals finally will be recovered from an end-of-life product depends on the concurrence of a set of main impact parameters. These comprise technical and economical impacts, societal/legislative factors, but as well the lifecycle structure of a product. 2.1
Technical factors
These describe the technical process capability and installed capacity to effectively recover metals from products. Important parameters here are: • Complexity, i.e. the variety of substances in a product: Both, cars and EEE are in general very complex products, each consisting of a large number of in itself also complex components, which are usually produced by various sub-manufacturers. Many substances are used in numerous combinations, with an increasing significance of precious and special metals (due to their importance for functionality). Many products contain both valuable and hazardous substances, often closely interlinked.
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• Concentration and distribution of (target) metals: Recovering copper from an alternator, transformer or cable, aluminium from a wheel rim, or lead from a car battery is relatively simple, since the metals are highly concentrated in these components. Much more technically challenging is the recovery of trace metals that occur on a ppm level, like precious and special metals in circuit boards or catalysts, or indium from LCD screens. Such highly disseminated metals usually can neither be recovered economically with individual recycling technologies, nor with small scale approaches. Here, large scale industrial operations are required, which can combine the recovery of a whole range of elements, thus distributing the costs against revenues obtainable from different output metals. • Product design and accessibility of components: “Design for recycling” has today rightly lost some ground against putting more emphasis on the use phase (e.g. energy consumption), and in many cases – if an early dialogue with the recycling industry takes place - technologies can be developed that efficiently recover also new materials and combinations1. However, there are some key hurdles to overcome in design to improve recyclability significantly such as eliminating mercury e.g. in backlights of LCD monitors or energy saving lamps. Also accessibility of critical components is important. An example for a well accessible component is the car catalyst, which can be cut from the exhaust system prior to shredding and fed into the appropriate recycling chain. The contrast is the case for most car electronics, widely distributed over the vehicle and thus very seldom removed prior to shredding, implying that most metals contained in car electronics are lost during the shredder process. Due to these technical factors, the complex products cars and electronics require a well organised and dedicated process chain, involving different stakeholders. Main steps in this chain are usually dismantling, pre-processing and final (metals) recovering. Success factors are interface optimisation between the single recycling steps, specialisation on specific materials and utilisation of economies of scale. Technical conflicts of interest cannot be fully avoided and from complex streams some metals will not be recovered, so it is important to set the right priorities. Especially for recovering precious and special metals in low concentrations from complex components, high-tech metallurgical processes are required. There still is a considerable improvement potential mainly in the technical interfaces with (mechanical) pre-processing [5], but if done in the right way - also for trace elements - very high recovery yields can be achieved. For example, in Umicore’s integrated metals smelter and refinery at Hoboken/Antwerp (Belgium), 17 different metals are recovered from complex feed materials. For precious metals from circuit boards or catalysts – in spite of their low concentration – yields of over 95% are realised, while simultaneously tin, lead, copper, bismuth, antimony, indium, and others are reclaimed [6]. With very few exceptions, recycling technology itself is not the barrier to achieve good recycling rates. If the economic incentive is there, also for difficult materials appropriate technological processes will be developed. Legislation has only a limited impact on recycling technologies. Examples are a) the mandatory removal of catalysts, circuit boards and batteries from end-of life devices; b) the classification of WEEE into certain qualities for collection (sorting); c) the obligation to meet
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Examples for a successful development of innovative recycling technologies are mobile phones, Li-ion batteries, diesel particulate filters or fuel cells.
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weight based recycling quotes, and d) the definition of standards for environmentally compliant processes. Mandatory removal of certain parts can be supportive as long as the way of how to remove a part is not a prescriptive obligation, but the result of getting target materials into a defined treatment stream is in the focus. The classification of WEEE is also important. The more different materials are mixed, the more difficult it is to pre-process these materials in a way that metal losses especially of trace elements are avoided and optimised output streams for further downstream processing are obtained. One drastic example would be mixing mobile phones and electric tools. The performance of the usually applied shredding and sorting technology to effectively recover trace elements like precious metals into defined output fractions here is often overvalued. Technical limitations exist for complex materials [5] Weight based recycling quotes have to be seen critical because they promote the recycling of the main constituents like steel, plastics, copper, aluminium which not necessarily are the most important ones from a value as well as from an environmental weight perspective. Trace elements are completely neglected here. Very important for the recycling industry are defined treatment standards because they help to create a level playing field and promote technological innovation. The control and enforcement of these standards is crucial, especially with respect to recycling plants outside Europe. In principle nothing can be said against recycling of European scrap in a nonEuropean country as long as the environmental standards of the European legislation are met (which in practice unfortunately often is not the case). 2.2
Societal and legislative factors
It is evident that for consumer goods awareness to recycle is of the utmost importance. Legislation, public campaigns (from authorities, NGO’s, manufacturers, etc.) as well as providing the appropriate infrastructure for turning in old products are important frame conditions. Europe, and herein especially the Scandinavian, Benelux and German speaking countries are in the meantime quite far in developing a general ‘recycling mentality’. Although many people are used to return old goods to collection points or trade them in, respectively donate them for reuse, for some smaller items like mobile phones (or originally “high price” electronics) still a large recycling potential needs to be mobilised from “hibernation” in drawers and basements. The bigger the item is, the higher is the need to get rid of it, if it doesn’t work anymore. Cars abandoned on the roadside, TV’s or washing machines in the forest have become rare in the countries mentioned above. Most people look for a proper solution. Nevertheless, a lot of goods handed in for recycling or reuse finally do not enter into the appropriate channels. This is not due to missing awareness or legislation, but due to weaknesses in its control and enforcement as well as in structural deficits, as we will see under 2.4. 2.3
Economic factors
The current high prices for metals and resources in general offer in principle a solid basis for stimulating recycling efforts. A high scrap value is a good incentive: It is determined by the intrinsic monetary value of the metals/substances that can be recovered from a product, and
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the total costs that are needed to realise that value. Thus, for the value not only the market prices (for metals) are important but also the variety and yields of substances that can be recovered (i.e. process efficiency, see 2.1). The costs comprise logistics, treatment (if necessary in the subsequent steps of the recycling chain) and costs for environmentally sound disposal of fractions/substances that cannot be recovered. Complexity of a product and hazardous substances contained therein drive the costs, but “traces of” expensive precious metals or base metals in higher concentrations drive up the value. The following examples illustrate the incentive to recycle also complex products/components: The net intrinsic metal value at the gate of a modern integrated metal smelter for an “average” mobile phone is about 6000 € per ton, for a computer board 4000 € per ton, and for a catalytic converter 50 € per piece1. These values already fully include costs at the smelter to well comply with today’s strict emission legislation, i.e. there is no “compromise on environment”. At record lead prices of well over 2000 € per ton, commercial lots of car batteries are attractive to a lead smelter. Taking into account e.g. steel and copper prices, also end-of-life vehicles are today no more a problem from their scrap value point of view. If sufficient quantities in reliable qualities are supplied to state-of-the-art metal smelters, all these materials mentioned are quite attractive. The more professional and efficient the collection and pre-processing infrastructure can be set-up, the more of this value can be realised at the final bottom line, hereby decreasing substantially the costs for society along the entire recycling chain of a product, with - in some cases - leaving even a (small) positive net value. Mobile phones, computers and cars can belong to the latter category. Other products like TV’s, most audio/video equipment in general, and small household appliances (coffee machines, etc.) still have a clear negative net value. Legislation can – and does – open ways to finance the recycling costs for these “negative goods”. 2.4 Structural factors – the product lifecycle Taking up what was said before, car catalysts, mobile phones, computers and cars in general should be products, which at least in Europe achieve a very high recycling rate because: • Efficient technologies and sufficient capacities to recycle these goods in an environmentally compliant way are existing. • Legislation and consumer awareness is in place. Collection and recycling infrastructure is not bad at least in a couple of European countries. • Economic incentives for recycling are attractive. Nevertheless, for all these products real recycling rates are well below 50%. The most eyecatching example in this context is the valuable car catalyst. On a global level, only about 50% of the PGMs are finally recovered. In Europe - due to its large ELV exports - it’s even below 40%. This happens although … -
it is easy to identify and remove the catalyst from a scrap car at the dismantler (which is also mandatory by the ELV directive),
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At metal price levels as of July 2007; net value = recovered metals value minus smelting and refining charges, but without consideration of collection and pre-processing costs in the preceding recycling chain. Value can vary significantly depending on specific quality/type (especially for autocatalysts).
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a more than sufficient number of catalyst collectors is aggressively chasing autocatalyst at dismantlers, scrap yards and workshops, paying several 10 € per piece,
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appropriate smelting and refining technologies recover more than 95% of the platinum group metals (PGM) contained in a catalyst,
So something most go essentially wrong and other factors must play a role. This realisation was the starting point of a research project that Umicore and Germany’s Öko-Institut conducted from 2001 onwards, entitled “Materials flow analysis of PGM”1. The results are summarised here after, more details have been published in [7; 8]. Structural factors investigated in more detail were product lifetime; sequence of product ownership; sequence of locality of use; system boundaries / global flows; structure of the recycling chain.
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Lifecycle structures
The investigation identifies two distinctly different forms of lifecycle structures, “closed cycles” and “open cycles”. These are commonly referred to as direct (closed) and indirect (open loop) systems. The results are summarised here from the PGM experience, but it is obvious that the structural factors are not limited to precious metals but can be generalised to a certain extend for industrial and consumer products in general. 3.1
Closed cycles – recycling from industrial processes
Closed loops (Fig. 1) prevail in industrial processes where metals are used to enable the manufacture of other goods or intermediates. In case of PGMs the manufactured goods typically do not contain PGMs themselves. Examples are PGM process catalysts (e.g. oil refining catalysts) or PGM-equipment used in the glass industry.
Figure 1: Closed (direct) cycles, typically for industrial PGM applications [7]
Characteristics of industrial cycles are: • Direct business relationship along the (PGM) product lifecycle: manufacturer – industrial user – metals refiner. • Metals remain in the industrial product, in case of precious metals their recovery is usually an economic imperative.
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The focus and system limit were the Federal Republic of Germany. Global conditions for the materials flow of PGM have, however, been adequately considered. Areas of investigation have been all relevant application segments for PGMs: Automotive catalysts; chemical & oil refining catalysts; glass manufacturing; dental applications; electronics; jewellery; electroplating; fuel cells & others.
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• Physical location of industrial products is confined to the user’s plant. Also ownership of the industrial product often remains with the (first) industrial user. If ownership or location changes, this is usually well documented. • Handling of the industrial (PGM) product along the entire lifecycle is usually done in a highly professional way, material flows are transparent. • As a result, closed loop systems are inherently efficient and more than 90% of the PGMs used in industrial processes is typically recovered and recycled. Product lifetime in industrial products can be very long as well; for some oil refining PGM catalysts they can exceed 10 years, which nevertheless does not negatively affect the achieved recovery rate. In case of precious metals containing industrial products, thus the attractive intrinsic value combined with the frame conditions of an industrial cycle is the driver for success. Recycling industrial products without precious metals (sometimes lasting even much longer) is often less economically attractive, but the other fundamental frame conditions remain similar. Old industrial infrastructure and machinery offer a significant future recycling potential for steel, copper and many other metals. Whereas massive infrastructure is difficult to relocate and thus a good target for “urban mining”, it is reported that 2nd-hand machinery is also increasingly leaving Europe [9]. 3.2
Open cycles – recycling from consumer durables
Open loop systems (fig. 2) are prevalent in the recycling of end-of-life consumer products such as vehicles (ELV) and electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
Figure 2: Open (indirect) cycles for consumer products (example: autocat recycling)
They show some fundamental difference compared to the lifecycle structure of industrial products: • Most participants in the lifecycle of consumer products are not aware of the contained valuable resources, losses during the use phase, e.g. from an autocatalyst, mostly are
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not detected. In contrast to industrial applications, usually the intrinsic metal value per unit is low, but the leverage effect of huge numbers adds up to significant resources.1 • Multiple changes of ownership occur, usually no connections remain between the final owner and the product manufacturer (which makes “producer responsibility” a nice requirement which - however - is difficult to realise). • The mobility of these goods is one of their in-built characteristics. Even without a change in product ownership it can be located at its end-of-life at a totally different place from where it was bought. With the frequently occurring transfer of ownership the location of use has spread across the globe. Computers and mobile phones from Europe are donated to charity organisations, which send them to the developing world. Commercial traders buy old equipment in Europe and sell it to Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. The same happens for end-of life vehicles. For ELVs and (W)EEE this is not an exception anymore but rather becomes the standard case.2 • Often no sharp distinction exists between an end-of-life and a second hand product. A car, computer or mobile phone regarded as waste in Western Europe can be seen as a product for reuse e.g. in Africa. Many traders take advantage of it and declare exports of old products as “reuse”. Although a part of these reuse exports is legitimate, many are illegal and just aim to circumvent the Basel Convention procedures for waste exports. • Material flows are very intransparent, with a high probability that sooner or later one will lose track. • In the early steps of the recycling chain often informal operators participate - acting in a non-industrial and sometimes illegal way - and further deteriorate the efficiency of the recycling chain. Old products returned in good faith by consumers for recycling or reuse might enter into dubious ways to escape to primitive landfills or disastrous backyard “recycling” operations in developing countries.[11] • The export of old consumer goods does not necessarily mean that the resources contained therein cannot be recovered at a later stage. However, in reality the probability for effective recycling taking place at the final end-of-life is rather low. Most developing and transition countries being the final destinations of European exports have for the time being no effective recycling infrastructure in place. Even if materials are recycled, it is usually more a “cherry picking” practice, aiming rather inefficiently for some valuable (precious) metals with processes which are not at all complying with article 1 of the
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It can be estimated that just the global sales in 2006 of mobile phones (1 billion) and computers (230 million) make up for 3% each of the world mine production of gold and silver, 12% of the one for palladium and 15% for cobalt. Per single device however, just a few mg of precious metals and just a few g of Co are contained. 2
It is estimated that about 50% of used IT-electronics are leaving Europe one way or another. In case of mobile phones, less than 5% of the theoretical recycling potential currently really is recycled in a compliant way [5]. The monitoring results for ELV in Germany showed for 2004 that out of 3.1 million deregistered cars in Germany only 540,000 have been recycled in the country, while 580,000 were exported officially according to German statistics, leaving a gap of about 2 million vehicles being exported “undetected”. A recycling rate of 77.2% was reported, but this refers only to the 540,000 cars scrapped in Germany. Calculated on the 3.1 million German deregistrations the recycling rate would fall to 13.5% only. The export of about 2.5 million cars represents a secondary materials potential of 1.3 million t steel, 180,000 t aluminium, about 110,000 t of other non-ferrous metals and about 6.25 t of PGMs. Significant quantities of ELVs are exported also from other European countries. [10]
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WEEE directive, “seeking to improve the environmental performance of all operators involved …”.1[12] • Summing up, the complex structure of open cycles for consumer goods bears many opportunities for failure of metals recovery and leads to an inherent inefficiency. If recycling rates even for valuable PGM containing catalysts are below 50%, it can be assumed that for most other metals it is even worse.
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Requirements for a global recycling society
It has been shown that old consumer products like cars and WEEE are traded on a global scale, widely bypassing national legislation and recycling efforts. Presently, the “recycling society” appears more to be a wishful thinking than a reality. If we really aim to achieve it still a lot needs to be done. Legislative measures like the WEEE directive or the ELV directive can only be a first step, further improvements are necessary. Hereafter some key points in short: • Collection targets of e.g. 4 kg/capita for WEEE are much too low and uniform (“electric stove = mobile phone”). A recycling society must strive to collect all of its waste, not just a portion. • Solely weight based recycling rates ignore the significance of trace elements and even lead to counteractive solutions in some cases (e.g. accepting losses of precious metals into sidestreams in order to recover more plastics and iron). • If a large portion of scrap escapes recycling e.g. through exports, the calculation of recycling rates only for the part that has been domestically recycled gives a wrong impression (see example ELVs in Germany). It is far more relevant to steer additional scrap into compliant recycling processes than whether for the few units which end up there a recycling rate of 75%, 80% or 85% is achieved.2 • Much more control and enforcement is needed to prevent illegal exports and noncompliant recycling processes. This can only be achieved if monitoring takes place throughout the entire recycling chain and not only up to the first treatment operation. • The cooperation of stakeholders within the recycling chain needs to be further improved, following a holistic approach and aiming specifically at the interfaces between subsequent operators. Important fields in this context are material classes for collection and sorting, pre-processing depth and technology, treatment of plastics and fluff, variety of output streams, and quality of input streams for end-processors. • Much more attention needs to be placed on system boundaries. Legislative measures that make sense within a defined system can be wrong once system boundaries are crossed. One example for this is the waste hierarchy, prioritising re-use above recycling, other recovery and disposal. Implicitly it is assumed that re-use of a product means an
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In case of automotive catalysts the current driving conditions in many developing countries (rugged roads, poor car maintenance, leaded fuel) often lead to the destruction of the ceramic catalyst brick, PGMs are then blown out through the exhaust pipe and no more accessible to recycling.[13] 2
Moreover, the recycling rate itself does not mean too much as long as the data taken as numerator and denominator in the calculation are both rather flexible in their definition or imply rough estimates.
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extension of lifetime but finally will lead into recycling, which indeed should be the case in a closed system. However, if in an open system re-use will take place outside the system boundary (e.g. car or computer exports to Africa), a high probability exists that at its final end-of-life the product is just discarded. Under these circumstances it is questionable if the prioritisation of the waste hierarchy makes sense, the benefits of an extended lifetime (+social benefits1) are competing now with the loss of resources and the potential negative impact of hazards being released into the environment. • On the long run, a “global recycling society” needs to be set-up. This includes installing effective recycling infrastructures also in the importing countries plus an international cooperation also in the “reverse supply chain”. Like in manufacturing of complex products also their recycling requires a division of labour, making use of specialisation and economies of scale. Up to a certain degree, recycling processes can be adapted well to a specific regional environment, but for certain critical fractions large scale industrial operations are required. An example is given in [12]. • A better understanding of the global flows and fate of old consumer products is a prerequisite to develop appropriate measures for a global recycling society. It is strange that even for large products as ELVs a statistical gap of 2 million cars for Germany cannot be explained, or that only rough estimates exist about how many computers leave Europe and whereto they are going. Investigations of such questions should be embedded into a multinational research, since exports from one perspective are imports from the other side. In this context, a project proposal on “Exploring discards and hidden flows of automobiles and electronics” has been developed, but missing adequate funding so far.[14]
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Conclusions
Much more attention needs to be placed on the resource dimension of waste. After more than 1000 years of mining, Europe has largely depleted its primary metal resources. The current technosphere and end-of-life products represent Europe’s largest resource stock that needs to be exploited effectively (“mine above ground”, “urban mining”). Striving for a recycling society points to the right direction but today’s reality is far away from achieving it. The public view is mainly based on legislative measures and technological capabilities without adequate consideration of the challenge of open cycle structures. • The negative impacts of “scrap” exports and inefficiencies in the recycling chain on the future recycling potential are heavily underestimated. • Minor or trace elements (precious metals, special metals) from complex materials often “disappear” in major streams (plastics, ferrous, aluminium, fluff, etc.) from where they cannot be recovered. The “high-tech approach” needed to eco-efficiently recover complex products is often ignored, recycling is still regarded as a rather simple, manual or mechanical process.
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Here a classical conflict of interest needs to be solved: A recycling society aiming for resource conservation would have to stop exports to destinations, where an effective end-of-life management cannot be secured. From a social and development aid perspective, especially exports of functioning IT-devices make sense (“bridging the digital divide”). There is no simple “right or wrong” decision, but it must be clear that today not both targets can be achieved at the same time; it’s an “either-or”.
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• Highly efficient recycling technologies are indeed available, main constraints that lead to insufficient recycling rates are not of technical but of structural nature. In order to provide sufficient modern recycling capacities, the European recycling industry needs more investment security and (legal) support to overcome the existing structural deficits. • Recycling efforts could be facilitated substantially if by adequate measure the open cycle structure of consumer goods could be gradually transferred towards a closed cycle structure as it exists for industrial products. This is no easy tasks and requires creativity and courage to establish e.g. new business models. One key element could be ownership of consumer goods. If e.g. cars or computers would be leased out instead of sold to the consumer; traceability and management of end-of-life products could be much better controlled than today. If things do not change, an inevitable consequence will be that the future secondary metals supply will be much lower than usually anticipated. Moreover, a major shift of secondary resources from industrial to developing and transition countries will take place. The European recycling society will then be nothing else than a nice buzzword. References [1] EU Commission Press Release (2005), New waste strategy: Making Europe a recycling society, IP/05/1673, 21.12.2005. [2] Gordon, R.B., Bertram, M., Graedel, T.E. (2006), Metal stocks and sustainability, PNAS, vol. 103, 1209-1214 [3] Five Winds International (2001), Eco-Efficiency and Materials, ICME publication, Ottawa, Canada [4] Directive 2002/96/EC of the EU parliament and of the council of 27.1.2003 on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), OJ L 37, 13.2.2003 [5] Hagelüken, C. (2006), Improving metal returns and eco-efficiency in electronics recycling, Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE conference, May 8-11, 2006, 218-223 [6] Hagelüken, C. (2006), Recycling of electronic scrap at Umicore’s integrated metals smelter and refinery, Erzmetall, vol. 59, 152-161 [7] GFMS, Umicore, Öko-Institut (2005), Materials Flow of platinum group metals, GFMS, London (2005) [8] Hagelüken, C., Buchert, M., Ryan, P. (2006), Materials Flow of PGM in Germany, Life Cycle Engineering, 13 CIRP Int. Conf., 31.5.-2.6. J. Duflou, W. Dewulf (eds.), (2006), 477-482.
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[9] Janischewski, J., Henzler, M., Kahlenborn, W. (2003), The export of second-hand goods and the transfer of technology, a study commissioned by the German Council for Sustainable Development, Adelpi Research, May 2003. [10] Buchert, M. et al. (2007), Optimization of Precious Metals Recycling: Analysis of exports of used vehicles and electrical and electronic devices at Hamburg port, publication of the Federal Environmental Agency of Germany, Febr. 2007. [11] Basel Action Network (2002), Exporting harm – The high—tech trashing of Asia, Seattle, Febr. 2002 Basel Action Network (2005), The digital dump – exporting re-use and abuse to Africa, Seattle, Oct. 2005 [12] Rochat, D. et al. (2007), Optimal recycling for printed wiring boards in India, R'07, World Congress, Sept. 3-5 [13] Hagelüken, C. (2007), Closing the loop – recycling of automotive catalysts, Metall, vol. 61, 24-39 [14] Graedel, T.E., Hagelüken, C. (2006), Exploring discards and “hidden flows” of automobiles and electronics: Potential impacts on metal supplies with special emphasis on PGMs, Yale, 2006
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