Recycle Metal to Reduce Mining

I got a sweater the other day produced in Bangladesh, as good as you get anywhere but picked up by my daughter in the United States. The south Asian country in spite of serious political unrest, which has its expected fallout in the economy has managed to increase its share of US garment imports to 10.56 per cent in the first quarter of this year from 8.85 per cent in 2024.

The success in exports in a demanding market like the US is because of price competitiveness of Bangladeshi manufacturers not only due to comparatively low wages compared with China and India, factory ability to readily adopt design changes required by buyers, thanks to skilled manpower, advantage of low currency value and steady order shift from China. The other big manufacturer-exporters of garments, including India, Vietnam and Indonesia have also gained from China plus one policy of the Western countries.

Once you get a new garment, the tendency is to look at the label first before putting it on. You are curious about the brand, the origin of the garment, and also the fibre composition. What took me by surprise with the sweater I got is, as the label says, it is made with “a minimum of 40 per cent recycled materials.” The product has 60 per cent cotton and 40 per cent polyester.

I was told by my daughter, who is living in the US for over a decade and upholds eco-activism that the ranks of concerned Americans buying recycled products are fast growing. Going beyond, they have voted for green products and use of metals from copper to aluminium to steel sourced from secondary sources. What gives satisfaction to environmentalists is to the extent scrap from end-life products is recycled, industry reliance on mining of ores will be curbed. In the process of recycling of metals, electricity saving is considerable, almost to the extent of 90 per cent when seen against primary route of metal making. See, how environment friendly then is secondary route of producing metals.

Then in most instances, opening of new mines leads to displacement of original peoples whether in Australia, India or Brazil. Governments in ores bearing countries have come under growing pressure from civil society to ensure that mining groups take the rehabilitation of displaced people seriously. After all, tribal communities have been in occupation of the lands for centuries that they are asked to vacate to make room for mines.

So, the issue here is ethical and the mining groups are never short of funds. Mercifully, in more and more countries in the West, corporates and also final consumers will ungrudgingly pay a premium for anything made doing the least possible harm to the environment and also ethically.

Textiles offer the possibility of becoming an important part of circular economy and at the same time their recycling will curb carbon emissions and pollution. Besides saving natural resources like water, which is in short supply in majority of countries (India too faces high water stress) and electricity, recycling will ease pressure on waste disposal.

Environmentalists will say, less the use of textile dyes, which are found to be toxic and potentially carcinogenic, better it is for human beings and the environment. Eternally desirous of breathing fresh air free of floating pollutants and seeing the sky not covered by smoke, I appreciate the thoughts that have gone into making the sweater with 40 per cent recycled materials. Whoever will be using a garment like that will find the wear extra comforting.

Whether the recycling relates to minerals, especially the critical ones such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earths or textiles, the success of initiatives in that direction will depend much on policy environment. Looking at the scene globally, there is a positive movement in framing of new policies and regulations and sanctioning of financial incentives to promote recycling.

The International Energy Agency’s Critical Minerals Policy Tracker focussing on 22 countries found introduction of over 30 new policy moves related to critical minerals recycling since 2022. The policies, according to IEA tracker, fall into four categories: “Strategic plans, extended producer responsibility (EPR), financial incentives and cross-border trade regulations. Some also include regulatory mandates such as industry-specific targets for material recovery, collection rates and minimum recycled content.”

Let’s consider the indispensability of recycling for “security and sustainability” of critical minerals supply for transition to clean energy. As the transition gains in momentum across the continents, critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earths will meet with higher and higher demand creating compulsion for fresh large investments in mines expansion and opening of new deposits. For importers of such minerals, relief will come by way of developing a robust infrastructure for collection of metals to be found in end of life be it vehicles, machinery, ships or a range of engineering products. The more the supply of secondary metals through scaling up of recycling, greater will be the mitigation of “environmental and social impacts related to mining and refining.” This besides, recycling will reduce the pressure of waste disposal.

But as it continues to happen, the use of recycled materials has failed to grow in sync with demand rises for metals. For example, IEA says in a report that in the case of copper, which has critical applications in electricals, the share of secondary supply, including direct scrap use, in total demand for the metal is down from 37 per cent in 2015 to 3 per cent in 2023. Nickel fared even worse where the share of recycled material in the same period retreated to 31 per cent from 35 per cent.

According to the report, aluminium benefiting from well-coordinated industry intervention by supporting collection of used metal and its remelting and supportive government regulations has, however, seen the rise in share of recycled metal’s use from 24 per cent to 26 per cent.

IEA says, “a successful scale-up of recycling can lower the need for new mining activity by 25 to 40 per cent by 2050 in a scenario that meets national climate pledges.” In case the pledges made by different nations are fulfilled, then recycling or secondary production will lead to cut in new mines development by 40 per cent for copper and cobalt and 25 per cent for lithium and nickel by 2050.