Copper is the metal of electrification. It carries the current in every power grid, every electric vehicle, every solar farm, and now every data center rising to feed artificial intelligence. The world wants more of all of these, which means it wants more copper. The question is not whether the demand is coming. It is already here.
So where does the copper come from? For this edition on recycling, let me be direct. It comes from two places, and we need both.
Start with what recycling gets right
Copper is one of the few materials genuinely built for a circular economy. It is repeatedly recyclable. You can melt it, reuse it, and put it back to work without any loss of its properties. A copper wire recycled today performs like copper pulled fresh from the ground. Very few materials can make that claim.
The numbers back this up. Around a third of global copper demand is met with recycled material, with published estimates ranging from roughly 30 to 35 percent. The end-of-life recycling rate for copper is among the highest of any industrial metal. And recycled copper requires less energy than primary production, which cuts emissions and cost.
Here is the fact I like most. Roughly two-thirds of all the copper ever produced is still in use today. It is in our buildings, our machines, and our infrastructure. Copper is not consumed and thrown away. It is banked. Every kilogram we put into the economy is a kilogram we can recover later.
Our members are investing real money in this
This is not a talking point. It is a capital plan.
Aurubis, an ICA member and one of the largest copper recyclers in the world, is building out multimetal recycling on both sides of the Atlantic. Its plant in Augusta, Georgia, named Aurubis Richmond, is the first secondary smelter of its kind for complex multimetal recycling in the United States. It represents an investment of around 800 million dollars, and at full build it is designed to process more than 180,000 tons of complex material a year, recovering copper along with nickel, tin, and precious metals from circuit boards and cable. As their CEO Toralf Haag put it when the plant reached production, Aurubis Richmond makes the company the frontrunner in multimetal recycling in the US, a position it already holds in Europe.
That is what a modern recycler looks like: high technology, high capital, high value. It turns yesterday’s electronics into tomorrow’s grid, and keeps strategic metals inside the economy. ICA members are moving in this direction, and we should be proud of it.
Now the part we cannot dodge
Recycling is essential. Recycling alone is not enough. Both are true, and honest leadership means saying both.
The first reason is physics. No technology, today or on the horizon, recovers 100 percent of copper. Some is always lost in collection, sorting, and processing. A perfect closed loop does not exist.
The second is time. Copper stays in service for a long time, often 25 to 30 years. The copper inside a building constructed today will not return to the market until the 2050s. You cannot recycle copper that is still in the wall, still in the cable, still doing its job. Much of the metal we need this decade has not been mined yet.
The independent data tell the same story. The International Energy Agency finds that, even with strong growth in recycling, announced mining projects are expected to meet only about 70 percent of copper requirements by 2035. The IEA also concludes that expanded recycling can materially reduce pressure on future mine supply. That is a meaningful contribution, but not enough on its own, and the same analysis makes clear that continued investment in new mines remains essential.
The math of demand
Consider the size of what is coming. Market projections point to global copper demand reaching around 42 million tonnes by 2040. Meeting it means adding the equivalent of two Antamina-sized operations every year. And the newest source of demand only sharpens it. The IEA projects that electricity use from data centers will roughly double by 2030, with copper demand from data centers alone approaching half a million tonnes a year by the end of the decade.
Now consider the clock. Different studies put the average at around 16.5 years from discovery to first production, and the largest projects run to 20. A data center can be built in three. Demand arrives on a three-year timeline while supply responds on a two-decade one. Recycling helps close that gap, and it should, but it cannot close all of it. The metal is not yet available in recycled form at the scale the transition requires.
So this is not recycling versus mining. That framing is wrong, and it has never served this industry well. It is recycling and mining. We need world-class recyclers like Aurubis pushing recovery rates higher, and responsible new mine supply coming online faster. One without the other leaves the world short of the copper it has already decided it wants.
Responsible on both sides of the loop
Our members are committed on both fronts. ICA members invest roughly 19 billion dollars every year in sustainable development, from cleaner smelting and water reuse to renewable power and community programs. Responsible mining and world-class recycling are not competing values. They are two halves of the same commitment, to supply the material of the energy transition while raising the standard for how it is produced.
Copper competes with other materials. If we cannot supply it responsibly and on time, the market will look for substitutes. That is the real risk, and it is why complacency on either side of the loop is not an option.
The question in front of us is not whether there will be demand. The question is whether we will be able to produce on time and at the right scale. My answer is that we can, but only if we stop treating recycling and mining as a choice. Recycling is critical. More responsible mining is essential. The world needs both, and it needs them now.
