Multilevel Cycle of Anthropogenic Copper

Abstract

A comprehensive contemporary cycle for stocks and flows of copper is characterized and presented, incorporating information on extraction, processing, fabrication and manufacturing, use, discard, recycling, final disposal, and dissipation. The analysis is performed on an annual basis, ca. 1994, at three discrete governmental unit levels−56 countries or country groups that together comprise essentially all global anthropogenic copper stocks and flows, nine world regions, and the planet as a whole. Cycles for all of these are presented and discussed, and a “best estimate” global copper cycle is constructed to resolve aggregation discrepancies. Among the most interesting results are (1) transformation rates and recycling rates in apparently similar national economies differ by factors of two or more (country level); (2) the discard flows that have the greatest potential for copper recycling are those with low magnitude flows but high copper concentrationselectronics, electrical equipment, and vehicles (regional level); (3) worldwide, about 53% of the copper that was discarded in various forms was recovered and reused or recycled (global level); (4) the highest rate of transfer of discarded copper to repositories is into landfills, but the annual amount of copper deposited in mine tailings is nearly as high (global level); and (5) nearly 30% of copper mining occurred merely to replace copper that was discarded. The results provide a framework for similar studies of other anthropogenic resource cycles as well as a basis for supplementary studies in resource stocks, industrial resource utilization, waste management, industrial economics, and environmental impacts.

The Distribution of Material Footprints in Germany

“…Copper stocks and flows have been analyzed both on a global (Graedel et al, 2004) and on a country level (van Beers and Graedel, 2007;Daigo et al, 2009;Guo and Song, 2008). Binder et al (2008) estimate the drivers of copper use, revealing a strong connection with GDP per capita.…”

Global Substance Flow Analysis of Indium

“…It is likely that the lost indium is in the mining tailings and the sludge from smelters. The yield rates for other metals were estimated as follows: 86% for copper, 26) 73% for silver, 27) 73% for chromium, 28) 82% for zinc 7) and 87% for nickel. 29) These figures demonstrate that the yield rate for indium is significantly lower than those for other metals, which may be attributed to the difficulty of extracting indium compared with other metals.…”

Urban Mines of Copper: Size and Potential for Recycling in the EU

“…Most of these studies applied MFA as a systematic evaluation of flows and stock over time or for a given year. Ayres et al (2002) provided a pioneer perspective on the lifecycle of Cu and on the future of Cu recycling [24]; Graedel et al (2004) presented a first characterization of global and regional Cu cycles [25]; Gerst (2009) built on MFA results a perspective on possible Cu IUS scenarios [26]. More recently, Glöser et al (2013) applied dynamic MFA to global Cu flows, providing novel information on recycling indicators [15].…”