Assessment of potential copper scrap in China and policy recommendation

This paper investigated dynamic behavior of China's potential copper scrap generation based on previous consumption. China has consumed refined copper up to 95 million ton (Mt) for economic development from 1949 to 2013, which is mainly concentrated in equipment (36%) and infrastructure (45%). During the period, only 16% of consumed copper (about 15.5Mt) transformed to scrap and others were still in in-use stocks. While from 2014 to 2022, generated scrap is almost 1.2 times (about 18.3Mt) as much as that before 2013, over 50% of which are from equipment. This is due to majority of refined copper is consumed during the past decade. Therefore China would face explosive increasing scrap generation in the next two or three decades for temporal delay of social economic system. The ratio of recycling efficiency rate (RER) increased all the time and it's high to 58% in 2013. Although recycling copper scrap can conserve energy and reduce emission, it accompanied by some issues for increasingly complex composition. To alleviate the problem of copper shortage and make full use of huge potential scrap resources, some policy recommendations are put forward for the Chinese government: (1) Adjust copper resource policy and pay more attention to copper recycling industry. (2) Develop copper recycling industries to accommodate explosively increasing scrap and enforce extended producer responsibilities to recycle equipment by the way of reusing, remanufacturing and recycling etc. (3) For environmental and social problems, gradually guide copper recycling industry optimization. Make full use of rural-urban surplus labor force to construct social recycling network and encourage copper recycling enterprises improve technology and optimize plant design to reach the level of cleaner production.