The treatment and recycling flow of copper-containing waste such as power lines, telecommunication cables, railways cables, electric appliances, machines, automobiles, industrial machines and buildings were studied. The main results are as follows in thousand of tons in 1994 in Japan.A total of 560 thousand tons of old scrap copper were estimated to be generated, in which 197 were from power lines, telecommunication cables and railways cables, 128 from electric appliances and machines, 48 from automobiles, 61 from industrial machines, 126 from buildings. A total of 382 thousand tons were recycled either in Japan (337) or abroad (45) and the residual 178 was estimated to be landfilled.