Critical raw materials are a vital new currency; Europe’s e-waste is the vault

(Press-News.org) BRUSSELS -- With European demand for critical raw materials growing alongside geopolitical tensions and supply risks, a major analysis offers fundamental new data on the rapidly expanding size and value of Europe’s “urban mine” of electronic waste.

Discarded phones, laptops, servers, cables, appliances and other e-products in the EU27+4 (EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway) annually now contain roughly 1 million tonnes of critical raw materials (CRMs), the report says, essential metals and minerals for powering green technologies, digital infrastructure, and modern defence.

The Critical Raw Materials Outlook for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment report prepared by the European Union-funded FutuRaM consortium for International E-Waste Day, underlines that electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is fundamental to Europe’s economy and daily life. 

The analysis offers comprehensive datasets across the EU tracing EEE from first sale through end-of-life treatment and recovery, and outlines how Europe can recover more of these essential materials by improving collection, design, and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Most recent data at a glance (EU27+4 in 2022)

10.7 million tonnes of WEEE generated — about 20 kg per person

29 critical raw materials are present in e-waste

1 million tonnes of critical raw materials embedded in that stream

54% (5.7 million tonnes) managed compliantly in line with EU rules; 46% (5.0 million tonnes) outside compliant channels

From compliant treatment, approximately 400,000 tonnes of critical raw materials were recovered, including:

162,000 tonnes copper

207,000 tonnes aluminium

12,000 tonnes silicon

1,000 tonnes tungsten

2 tonnes palladium

Even within compliant systems, around 100,000 tonnes of critical raw materials were lost, largely rare earth elements in magnets and fluorescent powders

Non-compliant routes led to major losses:

3.3 million tonnes mixed with metal scrap (partial recovery at best)

700,000 tonnes of e-waste landfilled or incinerated; 400,000 tonnes exported for reuse

The remainder undocumented

Outlook to 2050: More waste / more potential 

By 2050, the total volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in the EU27+4 is projected to rise from 10.7 million tonnes in 2022 to between 12.5 and 19 million tonnes annually. The exact trajectory depends on which of three scenarios Europe follows: business-as-usual, recovery, or circularity.

The amount of critical raw materials (CRMs) embedded in this stream is expected to grow from about 1.0 million tonnes in 2022 to between 1.2 and 1.9 million tonnes per year by 2050. In other words, even if overall e-waste stabilises under a circular economy pathway, the concentration of valuable materials in products like photovoltaic panels, EV chargers, and servers will continue to increase.

Depending on policy choices, collection rates, and recycling efficiency, Europe could recover between 0.9 and 1.5 million tonnes of CRMs annually by 2050. Under business-as-usual, recovery levels remain modest, leaving much of this resource untapped. In the recovery scenario, investment in infrastructure and processing technologies pushes yields higher, while the circularity scenario achieves similar recovery volumes despite generating less e-waste overall – proof that smarter design, repair, and reuse strategies can balance reduced waste with strong material returns.

The circularity pathway offers a double dividend: it keeps annual WEEE volumes close to today’s 10.7 million tonnes while still enabling recovery of over 1 million tonnes of CRMs each year. That stability reduces environmental pressure, cuts the risk of hazardous leakage, and ensures Europe has a resilient source of metals like copper, aluminium, and palladium. It also highlights the importance of focusing not only on how much e-waste is generated, but on how effectively Europe designs products for disassembly, collects them at end-of-life, and processes them through advanced recycling.

Category trends to 2050

Large equipment, such as washing machines and dishwashers: from 4.0 million tonnes to as much as 7.5 million tonnes

Small equipment: from 3.2 million tonnes to as much as 4.5 million tonnes

Temperature exchange equipment: from 1.8 million tonnes to as much as 3.3 million tonnes

Small IT: from 800,000 tonnes to as much as 1 million tonnes

Screens and monitors: expected to decline overall, from 800,000 tonnes to a figure between 700,000 and 400,000 tonnes

Photovoltaic panels: from 150,000 tonnes (2022) to as much as 2.2 million tonnes (2050), reflecting Europe’s transition to solar energy

Lamps remain stable at around 100,000 tonnes

Where the materials are

Knowing which products and components contain which critical raw materials is the first step to getting them back.

CRMs appear throughout common devices: copper in cables and boards, aluminium in casings and frames, and platinum group metals in circuit boards and displays. 

Small but high-value amounts of palladium, neodymium, dysprosium, tantalum, gallium, and other rare earths used in such everyday products as laptops, touch screens, hairdryers, power drills, game controllers and medical devices. Several videos detailing these uses are here: https://bit.ly/4p8O4vs

How Europe improves recovery

Collect more, lose less. The largest sink is at the collection stage. Expanding convenient take-back, retailer returns, and municipal points increases compliant flows.

Design for dismantling. Standardised fasteners, accessible modules, and clear material identification help extract magnets, boards, cables, compressors, and displays where critical materials concentrate.

Target the right components. Prioritise product parts rich in critical materials — for example, hard drives and motors for rare earth magnets, circuit boards for platinum group metals, and cabling for copper.

Scale recycling capacity in Europe. Investments in advanced mechanical, hydrometallurgical, and pyrometallurgical processes increase yields and reduce losses.

Align incentives. Policy tools such as eco-design requirements, repairability and durability provisions, and economic instruments can make recovery the rational choice across the value chain.

Says Jessika Roswall, the EU Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy: “Europe depends on third countries for more than 90% of its critical raw materials, yet we only recycle some of them as little as 1%. We need a real change in mindset in how Europe collects, dismantles, and processes this fast-growing e-waste mountain into a new source of wealth.  Trade disruptions, from export bans to wars, expose Europe’s vulnerability.  Recycling is both an environmental imperative and a geopolitical strategy.”.” 

“It is hard to imagine modern civilisation without critical raw materials,” adds Pascal Leroy, Director General of the Brussels-based Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum, the organisation behind International E-Waste Day.  “Without them, we cannot build the batteries, turbines, chips, and cables that underpin Europe’s green and digital future. By mining our e-waste instead of the planet, Europeans have a powerful opportunity to build our own circular supply chains, reduce exposure to global shocks, and secure the building blocks of our future.”

Success stories: copper and aluminium

The report highlights copper and aluminium as CRMs successfully being recycled at scale and show what is possible when recycling systems are robust. 

Other materials, notably palladium and rare earths in magnets, are recovered at far smaller rates, underscoring the need for better design for dismantling, targeted collection, and advanced processing technologies.

Recovering silicon, silver, and rare metals from photovoltaic panels, the fastest-growing e-waste category, will be vital to Europe’s solar rollout, the report says.

Meanwhile, EV chargers, batteries, and motors depend heavily on copper, rare earth magnets, and aluminium.

And servers and data centres, packed with aluminium casings, copper wiring, and palladium-rich circuit boards, represent a growing urban mine.

“Europe’s e-waste is not trash, it’s a multi-billion-euro resource waiting to be unlocked,” said Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist at UNITAR SCYCLE, scientific coordinator of the FutuRaM Project, and a lead researcher behind the Global e-Waste Monitor.  “Every kilogram we recover and any device we repair strengthens our economy, reduces our dependency, and creates new jobs, and getting the facts right is crucial for decision making, policy development to improve resource management.”

Turning e-waste into a resource creates economic value across Europe, he adds:

New recycling facilities: investment in advanced separation, hydrometallurgy, and urban mining plants.

Job creation: thousands of positions in collection, logistics, repair, disassembly, and high-tech recycling.

Value retention: instead of exporting waste or losing metals to landfill, Europe keeps billions of euros worth of materials in circulation.

With CRMs like palladium valued at $25,000 to 30,000 per kg, even small improvements in recovery could yield hundreds of millions in value.

Beyond recycling, the circular economy scenario shows how Europe can keep waste volumes stable while recovering more materials, Dr. Baldé says. By extending product lifespans, making devices easier to repair, and designing components for dismantling, Europe could hold e-waste steady at around today’s 10.7 million tonnes yet still recover over 1 million tonnes of critical raw materials annually by 2050. 

“This approach not only reduces environmental pressure but also strengthens supply security and creates repair and reuse jobs. It underlines that the biggest gains come not only from better end-of-life treatment, but from smarter choices made at the design and use stages of a product’s life.”

Policy momentum

The findings feed directly into Europe’s evolving policy framework:

Critical Raw Materials Act (2024): sets benchmarks for extraction, processing, and recycling of strategic materials, aiming for 25% of annual demand to be met from recycling by 2030.

Circular Economy Act (consultation launched Aug 2025): will address the lack of sufficient demand and supply of secondary raw materials and the fragmentation of the EU single market.

WEEE Directive revision (expected 2026): likely to tighten collection and reporting rules, boosting demand of secondary raw materials and traceability.

FutuRaM Urban Mine Platform: an open database on CRM availability, to be used by policymakers, recyclers, and industry (to be launched in November 2025)

“This report shows that urban mining is no longer a concept, it’s a business opportunity,” says Giulia Iattoni from UNITAR, the lead author of the report and member of FutuRaM consortium.  “New recycling facilities are opening across Europe, and demand from manufacturers is guaranteed. The challenge now is to scale collection and processing systems to make this potential a reality.”.”

Concludes Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum and IEWD coordinator: “International E-Waste Day is a reminder that circularity starts at home. Every phone tucked in a drawer, every broken appliance stored in a garage, and every cable tossed in the trash represents lost value and a missed chance to keep critical raw materials in circulation.”

“By choosing to repair, reuse, or return old electronics through proper collection systems, consumers play a direct role in securing Europe’s supply of essential materials, reducing environmental damage from mining, and helping to create new green jobs. The success of circular economy policies depends not only on the legislation, but also on the everyday decisions of citizens,” she says.

By the numbers

Europe’s E-Waste, Critical Raw Materials, and the Race for Supply Security

10.7 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022; ~20 kg per person.

29 critical raw materials present in e-waste; ~1.0 million tonnes embedded.

54% of WEEE compliantly managed in 2022; 46% outside compliant channels.

0.4 million tonnes recovered from compliant treatment in 2022, including Cu 162 kt, Al 207 kt, Si 12 kt, W 1 kt, Pd 2 t.

2050 projection ranges (reflecting the business as usual, recovery and circularity scenarios): 12.5–19 Mt WEEE, 1.2–1.9 Mt embedded CRMs, 0.9–1.5 Mt recovered CRMs.

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Videos

On-the-street interviews asking people about Critical Raw Materials: https://bit.ly/48iZvef

Small but high-value amounts of palladium, neodymium, dysprosium, tantalum, gallium, and other rare earths used in such everyday products as laptops, touch screens, hairdryers, power drills, game controllers and medical devices. Several videos detailing these uses are here: https://bit.ly/4p8O4vs

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The report is available to the public post-embargo at www.weee-forum.org

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FutuRaM consortium

The report 2050 Critical Raw Materials Outlook for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment was prepared by the FutuRaM consortium for International E-Waste Day 2025.
FutuRaM (Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials) is an EU-funded Horizon Europe project that develops the knowledge base for secondary raw materials across multiple waste streams.

International e-Waste Day (#ewasteday) 

Last year, over 160 organisations from 47 countries supported the 7th International E-Waste Day observance. This year, the WEEE Forum invited all organisations involved in effective and responsible e-waste management to plan awareness-raising activities for 14 October. These range from social media, TV and radio campaigns to city or school e-waste collections or even artistic performances.  

www.internationalewasteday.com 

WEEE Forum 

The WEEE Forum is a Brussels-based non-for-profit association representing 50 sector-mandated producer responsibility organisations (PROs) worldwide. Through its members’ collective knowledge of the technical, business and operational aspects of collection, logistics, de-pollution, processing, preparing for reuse, and reporting of e-waste, the WEEE Forum is at the forefront of making extended producer responsibility an effective waste management policy. Its mission is to be the world’s foremost e-waste competence centre, excelling in the implementation of the circularity principle. 

Member PROs are based in Europe, Africa, and the Americas: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Georgia, France, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands,  Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Since their founding, the WEEE Forum’s producer responsibility organisations have collected, de-polluted and recycled or sent for preparation for re-use 45 million tonnes of WEEE. More than 3.6 million tonnes of this was collected in 2024.

www.weee-forum.org

Correspondence: pascal.leroy@weee-forum.org 

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WEEE Forum member contacts (for national e-waste insights):

Austria: UFH, Stephanie Zsifkovits stephanie.zsifkovits@ufh.at 

Belgium: Recupel, Annelies Evens annelies.evens@recupel.be

Bosnia and Herzegovina: ZEOS, Mahir Bjelonja mahir.bjelonja@zeos.ba 

Canada: GO RECYCLE, Mylène Mercier mylene@gorecycle.com; MARR, Chris Campbell, ccampbell@marrbccollab.ca 

Colombia: EcoCómputo, Maria Camila Robayo comunicaciones@ecocomputo.com; Red Verde, Néstor Hincapie jefaturatecnica@redverde.co 

Cyprus: WEEE Cyprus, Stelios Athanasiou s.athanasiou@weeecyprus.com.cy 

Czechia: ELEKTROWIN, Jan Marxt jan.marxt@elektrowin.cz 

Denmark: elretur, Jesper Bøttcher jb@elretur.dk 

France: Ecologic, Quentin Bellet QBELLET@ecologic-france.com ; ecosystem,  Claire Lemarchand clemarchand@ecosystem.eco Soren, Nicolas Defrenne  nicolas.defrenne@soren.eco 

Greece: Appliances Recycling, Christiana Bochali cbochali@electrocycle.gr; FOTOKIKLOSI SA, Dimitra Kyriakopoulou kyriakopoulou@fotokiklosi.gr 

Iceland: URVINNSLUSJODUR, Edda Andrésdóttir edda@irf.is 

India: Karo Sambhav, Pranshu Singhal Pranshu@karosambhav.com

Ireland: WEEE Ireland, Robyn Macken robyn@weeeireland.ie 

Italy: Cobat, Viviana Eramo  v.eramo@cobat.it ; PV CYCLE Italia, jan.clyncke@pvcycle.org; Erion, Alice Olgiati alice.olgiati@erion.it 

Lithuania: EGIO, Iveta Šmigelskienė iveta@gia.lt 

Luxembourg: Ecotrel, Saoussen Gouiaa  communication@ecotrel.lu 

Malta: WEEE Malta, Sergio Mallia sergio@weeemalta.org; WEEE Recycle, Mario Schembri mschembri@greenpak.com.mt 

Moldova: MoldControl, Iulian Gamureac, i.gamureac@moldcontrol.md 

Netherlands: Stichting OPEN (Wecycle), Danielle Elings Danielle.Elings@stichting-open.org 

Nigeria: EPRON, Ibukun Faluyi info@epron.org.ng 

North Macedonia: ElKolekt, Lidija Miloshevska, elkolekt@gmail.com  

Norway: RENAS AS, Anja Rönesen anja.ronesen@renas.no; Norsirk, Guro Kjørsvik Husby guro@norsirk.no 

Poland: ElektroEko, Anna Podsiadlo anna.podsiadlo@elektroeko.pl 

Portugal: Electrão, Ana Matos ana.matos@electrao.pt 

Romania: ARCwaste, Teodor Tobolcea teodor.tobolcea@arcwaste.ro; Asociatia ENVIRON, Roxana Puia roxana.puia@environ.ro; ECOTIC, Ema Cumpătă ema.cumpata@ecotic.ro 

Slovakia: Envidom, Peter Valent peter.valent.pv@gmail.com 

Slovenia: ZEOS, Ursa Dolinsek urska.dolinsek@zeos.si 

South Africa: Circular energy, management@circular-energy.org; ERA, Ashley du Plooy ashley@eranpc.co.za  

Spain: ECOLEC, Rafael Serrano rafael.serrano@ecolec.es; Recyclia, Enrique Santos esantos@recyclia.es; Ecotic, Raquel Ayora rayora@ecotic.es 

Sweden: Recipo, Hugo Chorell hugo@recipo.com; El-Kretsen, Mårten Sundin marten.sundin@el-kretsen.se 

Switzerland: Swico, Jon Fanzun jon.fanzun@swico.ch; SENS eRecycling, Nando Erne  nando.erne@sens.ch 

United Kingdom: Ecogenesys Ltd, Hannah Graham hgraham@ecogenesys.co.uk : PV CYCLE UK, Alexia Tilgenkamp media@pvcycle.org

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