Opportunities exist
for tackling environmental challenges through
increased recycling of metals from old products.
Berlin, 24 April 2013
- The growth in demand for metals, which
could see needs rise by almost ten times
current levels, calls for a rethink of recycling
practices in order to address negative environmental
impacts, according to two reports released
today by the UNEP-hosted International Resource
Panel.
Launched during a high-level
dialogue on Resource Efficiency and Sustainable
Management of Metals in Berlin, Environmental
Risks and Challenges of Anthropogenic Metals
Flows and Cycles provides an overview of
the environmental challenges of metals and
the potential contribution of recycling
to mitigate them. Metal Recycling - Opportunities,
Limits, Infrastructure outlines improvements
required to metal recycling systems in the
21st century.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Environmental Risks and Challenges of Anthropogenic
Metals Flows and Cycles
Metal Recycling ? Opportunities, Limits,
Infrastructure
International Resource Panel
"As populations in emerging economies
adopt similar technologies and lifestyles
to those currently used in OECD countries,
global metal needs will be three to nine
times larger than all the metals currently
used in the world," said UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
"A far more sophisticated
approach is urgently needed to address the
challenges of recycling complex products,
which contain a broad variety of interlinked
metals and materials," he added. "Product
designers need to ensure that materials
such as rare earth metals in products ranging
from solar panels and wind turbine magnets
to mobile phones can still be recovered
easily when they reach the end of their
life."
Metals are an essential
part of the global economy as core raw materials
for infrastructure. Demand is expected to
remain strong in the future: in developing
countries because of rapid industrialization,
and in developed countries because of modern
technologies. While renewable energy technologies-as
part of the transition to an inclusive green
economy-cut greenhouse gas emissions from
metals production, they are likely to increase
demand as they are more metal-intensive
than fossil-fuel energy sources.
"An increased share
of recycling of metals can be expected to
alleviate some of the adverse environmental
pressures from the use and production of
metals," said Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker
and Ashok Khosla, co-chairs of the IRP,
in a joint statement. "However, increased
recycling rates alone will not be sufficient
but need to be accompanied by a levelling
off of the demand curve for metals."
The integrated use of
metals and their compounds cause local impacts
from mining and use 7-8 per cent of the
global energy supply. There are also issues
related to metal emissions from sources
such as fossil fuels and phosphate fertilizer,
and the need for a final disposal solution
for certain metals where supply has exceeded
demand.
Recycling requires significantly
less energy per kilogramme of metal produced
than primary production, and also decreases
the overall local impact of mining. Recycling
also slows down the need for exploiting
low-grade ores-a more energy-intensive process
that is likely to become more common as
demand grows-and can help ward off future
scarcity of certain commonly used precious
metals.
Theoretically, metals
can be recycled almost indefinitely, thus
presenting a valuable opportunity to reduce
environmental degradation, energy and water
use and contribute to the transition to
a low-carbon, resource-efficient Green Economy.
However, the growing
complexity of products makes it difficult
to extract all and reuse valuable metals
due to the laws of physics and related economics.
For example, a mobile phone can contain
more than 40 elements, including base metals
such as copper and tin and precious and
platinum-group metals such as silver, gold
and palladium.
In order to boost historically
low recycling rates, a global move from
a Material-Centric to a Product-Centric
approach, in which recycling targets specific
components of a product and their complexity
at its End of Life (EoL) and devises ways
to separate and recover them, is essential.
Optimizing the recycling
of EoL products can avoid losses in efficiency
throughout the chain of recycling. The global
mainstreaming of such a Product-Centric
view would be a remarkable step towards
efficient recycling systems, resource efficiency
and a Green Economy.
"Our aim must be
to beak the raw materials spiral by using
materials more consciously," said German
Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier.
"In Germany, raw materials are already
applied much more efficiently than ten years
ago. But we can achieve even more: By 2020
we want to double raw materials efficiency
compared to 1994 levels."
The potential for recycling
is enormous when the amount of electrical
and electronic equipment waste being generated
is considered. Such waste is estimated at
20 to 50 million tonnes, or three to seven
kilogrammes per person, each year.
In Europe alone, the
amount of such waste generated is about
12 million tonnes per year. This is expected
to increase in the coming decades at a rate
of at least four per cent annually-about
three times higher than the growth of municipal
waste.
However, recycling rates
have been consistently low-a previous report
by the IRP found that less than one-third
of some 60 metals studied have an end-of-life
(EoL) recycling rate above 50 per cent and
34 elements are below one per cent recycling.
Recommendations
The reports issued a
series of recommendations to attain a workable
sustainable metals management system, including:
Certified systems based
on Best Available Technologies (BATs) and
other measures increasing energy and entropy
efficiency for mining as well as recycling
industries have been developed and need
to be applied on a global level. These techniques
differ between regions, and do not necessarily
need to be high technology.
Weight-based targets hinder rather than
promote recycling of the many critical elements
in complex products, usually present in
very low concentrations. Priorities have
to be set for different metals, such as
base metals, special metals, critical-technology
metals, etc.
Policy targets for recycling
must account for the loss of metals due
to mixing, must not exceed physical, technological
and thermodynamic limits, and should not
prioritize one or two metals at the inadvertent
expense of others. Targets that go beyond
what is thermodynamically possible are likely
to fail. Policy makers can set appropriate
targets from a life-cycle perspective by
drawing on the expertise and tools available
within the recycling industry.
System optimization
and design can further increase recycling
rates and decrease environmental impacts.
Product designers should take life-cycle
approaches as well as metallurgical knowledge
and rigorous process recycling system simulation
into account when designing new products.
Research and education is critically important
for preserving this knowledge and for driving
innovation that maximizes resource efficiency
Policy goals for the recycling system must
dovetail with economic drivers. With so
many operators in the collection and recycling
industry, regulation enforcement is unlikely
to be sufficient by itself for determining
the destination of metal-containing waste-streams.
Primary production energy-efficiency increases
can be achieved by improved process efficiency
and use of waste streams (fly ash, sludge,
slags, precipitates and suchlike) as sources
of metals.
+ More
New Report Highlights
Growing Biodiversity Awareness Worldwide
Mon, Apr 22, 2013 -
The results not only demonstrate a growing
consciousness, they also show that respecting
biodiversity provides tremendous opportunities
for business around the world
Paris/Montreal, 19 April
2013 - 75% of consumers surveyed worldwide
are aware of biodiversity, while 48% can
give a correct definition of the term biodiversity.
These are some of the findings contained
in the 2013 Biodiversity Barometer report
launched today in Paris by the Union for
Ethical BioTrade (UEBT). Consumers in Brazil,
China and France, according to the study,
show a particular awareness about biodiversity.
"The Biodiversity
Barometer is an important source of information
on global trends in biodiversity awareness.
The results not only demonstrate a growing
consciousness, they also show that respecting
biodiversity provides tremendous opportunities
for business around the world" said
Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive
Secretary for the Convention on Biological
Diversity.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Very high biodiversity awareness in China
This year's special
focus on China reveals interesting results:
Apart from a very high biodiversity awareness
(94%), Chinese consumers surveyed also show
high knowledge of biodiversity: 64% could
define correctly what biodiversity means.
"The survey results do not come as
a surprise. In recent years, the government
as well as civil society organizations in
China has undertaken tremendous activities
for communicating and raising awareness
of biodiversity issues" says Zhang
Wenguo, Ministry of Environmental Protection
of the People's Republic of China.
Biodiversity offers
branding opportunities
Responses to the question
"What are the three brands you consider
are making the most efforts to respect biodiversity?"
were manifold and often country-specific:
In Brazil, there is a clear leader with
Natura (49%). In the USA, most mentioned
food brands, including Kraft, Starbucks
and Ben & Jerry's. UK has two leading
companies: Bodyshop and CO-OP (23% and 20%).
In France Yves Rocher, Nestle and Danone
top the list, while in China the perceived
leaders are Yili, Mengliu and Amway. "There
are clear opportunities for brands to position
themselves around the issue of biodiversity,
and anticipate increasing consumer interest
on this issue" concludes Rémy
Oudghiri, Director of Trends and Insights
at IPSOS.
Biodiversity reporting
is growing, but still weak
"Today 32 of the
top 100 beauty companies in the world refer
to biodiversity in their corporate communications
such as sustainability reporting and websites.
This is considerably higher than in 2009,
but much lower than what we found in the
top 100 food companies" says Rik Kutsch
Lojenga, Executive Director of UEBT. In
2013, 87% of consumers say they want to
be better informed about how companies source
their natural ingredients, and a large majority
of consumers say they would to boycott brands
that do not take good care of environmental
or ethical trade practices in its sourcing
and production processes.
Youth is the future
of biodiversity
For brands interested
in reaching consumers on biodiversity, the
2013 Biodiversity Barometer offers the following
insights: Young people tend to have the
highest awareness of biodiversity (80%),
as well as more affluent and well-educated
people. Traditional media remain by and
large the key sources of awareness: 51%
of all surveyed consumers learned about
biodiversity through television, 33% through
newspapers and magazines.
On the UEBT Biodiversity
Barometer
The UEBT Barometer provides
insights on evolving biodiversity awareness
among consumers and how the beauty industry
reports on biodiversity. It also illustrates
the progress towards achieving the targets
of the Strategic Plan of the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),
and its results will be reflected in the
next edition of the Global Biodiversity
Outlook as a midway point analysis of the
achievement of those targets. Since its
first edition in 2009, the global research
organisation IPSOS, on behalf of UEBT, has
interviewed 31,000 consumers in 11 countries
(Brazil, China, France, Germany, India,
Japan, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, UK
and USA). In 2013, the biodiversity barometer
survey was conducted among 6,000 consumers
in six countries - Brazil, China, France,
Germany, UK and USA.
The Union for Ethical
BioTrade
The Union for Ethical
BioTrade is a non-profit association that
promotes the 'Sourcing with Respect' of
ingredients that come from biodiversity.
Members, which include many beauty companies,
commit to gradually ensuring that their
sourcing practices promote the conservation
of biodiversity, respect traditional knowledge,
and assure the equitable sharing of benefits
all along the supply chain.
The Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD)
Opened for signature
at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in
1992, and entering into force in December
1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity
is an international treaty for the conservation
of biodiversity, the sustainable use of
the components of biodiversity and the equitable
sharing of the benefits derived from the
use of genetic resources. With 193 Parties,
the Convention has near universal participation
among countries. The Convention seeks to
address all threats to biodiversity and
ecosystem services, including threats from
climate change, through scientific assessments,
the development of tools, incentives and
processes, the transfer of technologies
and good practices and the full and active
involvement of relevant stakeholders including
indigenous and local communities, youth,
NGOs, women and the business community.
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a
subsidiary agreement to the Convention.
It seeks to protect biological diversity
from the potential risks posed by living
modified organisms resulting from modern
biotechnology. To date, 163 countries plus
the European Union have ratified the Cartagena
Protocol. The Secretariat of the Convention
and its Cartagena Protocol is located in
Montreal. For more information visit: www.cbd.int.
