European Economic Congress 2026: Is Europe too late to the metal recycling game?

Europe's captious earthy materials situation has a partial reply sitting successful the discarded watercourse — but the continent has been excessively dilatory to spot it.

Dorota Włoch, CEO of Eneris Surowce, was direct: recycling is nary longer optional.

Unlike plastics, metals tin beryllium recovered and reused indefinitely, making municipality mining — the betterment of earthy materials from existing products and discarded — progressively valuable, peculiarly for batteries.

"From recycling, we retrieve metallic aluminium and alleged achromatic mass, which is simply a ore of metals, chiefly cobalt-nickel. These are immoderate of the astir invaluable artillery metals. And batteries are important today, not lone successful the automotive sector, but besides successful storing vigor from renewable sources specified arsenic upwind and solar," she said.

'Europe is 25 years late'

Włoch enactment the standard of the occupation plainly. "Deposits are captious — immoderate instrumentality tin beryllium bought, but earthy resources are not. They are non-transferable and non-renewable. If we usage them, they simply disappear," she said.

Europe's belated designation of that world has outgo it dearly.

"The regularisation of captious earthy materials came 25 years aft different regions of the satellite had invested heavy successful deposits. Europe was excessively passive. Today we are catching up, but the regulations are often truthful demanding that countries similar Poland person trouble implementing them."

Who benefits astir from extraction?

Poland holds important reserves of earthy materials captious to the modern economy, specified arsenic copper, coking coal, nickel, platinum radical metals, helium, rhenium, pb and silver.

But the minerals needed astir for the vigor transition, specified arsenic lithium, cobalt and graphite, beryllium lone successful constricted quantities, forcing imports.

Arkadiusz Kustra, dean of the module of civilian engineering and assets absorption astatine AGH University of Science and Technology successful Kraków, told a sheet astatine the European Economic Congress that consciousness of the afloat proviso chain, and who profits from it, was present essential.

He pointed to Serbia arsenic a lawsuit study.

"Serbia has lithium deposits and is already successful talks with Mercedes oregon Stellantis," helium said. Belgrade is utilizing that leverage to pull concern successful artillery factories and car plants, keeping much of the worth concatenation astatine home.

The goal, Kustra argued, should beryllium determination proviso chains that clasp added worth locally.

"You tin gain the slightest astatine the opening and the astir from the extremity customer," helium said.

The bigger obstacle is Chinese dominance.

"Margins successful captious earthy materials mostly spell to the Chinese, who power much than 90% of processing and trading, adjacent though they bash not ain astir of the deposits," helium said.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo — among the world's astir resource-rich countries — Chinese entities power astir 90% of deposits.

The sheet besides pointed to increasing involvement successful caller proviso partnerships, with Poland eyeing assets successful the Congo portion and the Americas.