European post-consumer steel scrap in 2050: A review of estimates and modeling assumptions

Carolin Hundt and Frank Pothen

No 01/2024, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Schriften from Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena – University of Applied Sciences, Department of Business Administration

Abstract: This paper studies the availability of post-consumer steel scrap in Europe until 2050. We introduce the indicator potentially available domestic post-consumer scrap (PADPS) which measures the amount of (steel) scrap from obsolete products available for recycling, prior to trade in scrap. We analyze material flow studies from the academic literature and international organizations to quantify this indicator. The studies suggest a rising trend of post-consumer scrap amounts until a saturation level when the expected yearly steel product obsolescence of the system stabilizes. Between 2010 and 2050, PADPS is expected to rise annually by approximately 1.6% per year. We identify in-use steel stocks, recycling rates, and product lifetimes as the three commonly gauged factors determining PADPS. While recycling rates and product lifetimes range comparatively close in the studies, the estimation of in-use stocks displays much greater variation and introduces an element of uncertainty in estimating the post-consumer scrap amounts that can be expected in the coming decades.

Keywords: Steel scrap; steel recycling; post-consumer scrap; steel stocks; Europe; 2050; literature review; Stahlschrott; Stahlrecycling; Altschrott; Steel Stocks; Europa; systematische Literaturanalyse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/300853/1/1897932995.pdf (application/pdf)

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:zbw:fhjwws:300853

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Schriften from Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena – University of Applied Sciences, Department of Business Administration Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().