EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Evaluation of the Metals Industry's Position on Recycling and its Implications for Environmental Emissions

Colin A. McMillan, Steven J. Skerlos and Gregory A. Keoleian

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2012, vol. 16, issue 3, 324-333

Abstract: A healthy debate on the treatment of metals recycling in the life cycle assessment (LCA) community has persisted for more than a decade. While no clear consensus across stakeholder groups has emerged, the metals industry has endorsed a set of recycling “facts” that support a single approach, end‐of‐life recycling, for evaluating the environmental benefits of metals recycling. In this article we draw from research conducted in several disciplines and find that three key tenets of the metals industry capture the theoretical potential of metals recycling from a metallurgical standpoint rather than reflecting observed behavior. We then discuss the implications of these conclusions on environmental emissions from metals production and recycling. Evidence is provided that, contrary to the position of the metals industry, metals are not necessarily recycled at high rates, are recycled only a small number of times before final disposal, and are sometimes limited in recycling potential by the economics of contaminant removal. The analysis concludes that metal recycled from old scrap largely serves as an imperfect substitute for primary metal. As a result, large‐scale displacement of primary production and its associated environmental emissions is currently limited to a few specific instances.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00483.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:inecol:v:16:y:2012:i:3:p:324-333

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1088-1980

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Industrial Ecology is currently edited by Reid Lifset

More articles in Journal of Industrial Ecology from Yale University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:16:y:2012:i:3:p:324-333