Wed, Apr 24, 2013 -
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.
"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
Guidance Manual for
Conducting Country Studies on Ecosystem
Services Launched
Tue, May 28, 2013 -
The newly launched TEEB Manual provides
both technical and operational guidance
on how countries can conduct a TEEB Country
Study
TEEB Country studies
recognize value in ecosystems, landscapes,
species and other aspects of biodiversity
that are key to the economic needs of a
country
Trondheim, 28 May 2013-
The Guidance Manual for The Economics of
Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Country
Studies was launched by UNEP and partners
on 28 May 2013 at a high-level session titled
'Trade-offs in national policy' at the Trondheim
Conference on Biodiversity.
The Guidance Manual was developed following
requests from countries interested in undertaking
a TEEB country study, with the aim of achieving
their development goals while at the same
time sustainably managing their natural
resources.
A TEEB Country study
highlights the different ways in which nature
contributes to a country's development,
and recommends ways to incorporate these
contributions in decision making. In such
a study, vital ecosystem services that are
key in meeting the country's policy priorities
are identified, and examined in detail to
be integrated into the policy process.
The TEEB Manual provides both technical
and operational guidance on how countries
can conduct a TEEB Country Study. It outlines
the various steps that can be taken to successfully
initiate and implement a country study,
communicate its findings, and implement
the recommendations of the study.
The Guidance Manual
is part of the TEEB implementation project
'Reflecting the Values of Ecosystems and
Biodiversity in Policy-making', financed
by the European Commission, and which will
support the implementation of TEEB in five
developing countries over a period of three
years. It will ensure the methodological
implementation of the project.
The Manual was developed
by UNEP in partnership with the Helmholtz
Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ),
Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Institute for
European Environmental Policy (IEEP) among
others.
TEEB
The Economics of Ecosystems
and Biodiversity (TEEB) is a global initiative
focused on drawing attention to the economic
benefits of biodiversity. Its objective
is to highlight the growing cost of biodiversity
loss and ecosystem degradation.
TEEB presents an approach
that can support decision-makers recognize,
demonstrate and capture the values of ecosystems
& biodiversity, including how to incorporate
these values into decision-making.
