Critical raw materials are now one of the key nodes in the twin transitions, Europe’s ecological and digital transitions. Batteries, electric vehicles, photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, electronic equipment, and high-tech infrastructure require indispensable materials, yet these are exposed to supply risks, geographic concentration of supply, and global industrial competition. This special report by EconomiaCircolare.com originates from the need to shift the perspective from traditional mines to “urban mines” – i.e., waste streams, end-of-life products, components and materials already circulating within the European economy – which can become a strategic source of secondary raw materials.
The European FutuRaM – Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials project provides a fundamental knowledge base to understand this transformation. Funded under Horizon Europe, FutuRaM has developed a European knowledge base on the availability and recoverability of secondary raw materials, with a specific focus on critical raw materials, across the EU27+4 (European Union plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). The project analyses six major streams: end-of-life batteries, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), end-of-life vehicles (ELV), extractive waste, slags and ashes, and construction and demolition waste, including decommissioned wind turbines. The goal is not only to estimate how much material is contained in these waste streams, but to understand where it is located, in which products and components, at which quality levels, what losses occur along collection and treatment, and which technical, economic, regulatory, and industrial conditions make recovery feasible.
This report illustrates how the project lays the groundwork for defining an industrial policy infrastructure. Its stock-and-flow models, composition analyses, 2050 scenarios, and the Urban Mine Platform enable the identification of material hotspots, estimate the theoretical availability of secondary raw materials, and support evidence-based public and industrial decision-making. From this perspective, recovery becomes a lever to simultaneously reduce the overexploitation of natural resources and strategic dependencies, retain value within European value chains, improve the quality of incoming waste streams at treatment facilities, and guide ecodesign, selective collection, treatment technologies, and investments.
The articles in this report follow this path, starting from the European context on critical raw materials and delving into the case of WEEE and missing supply chains, illustrating 2050 scenarios and the Italian situation. Through the lens of the FutuRaM project, EconomiaCircolare.com creates an ideal bridge between research, industry, and policy, showing that the future availability of critical raw materials will also depend on how effectively Europe can measure, collect, separate, and recover them, and above all, on how well a coordinated industrial strategy can be implemented across countries.
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FutuRaM Project Partners: WEEE Forum, UNITAR, Erion WEEE, Empa, Universiteit Leiden, Technische Universität Berlin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, BRGM, Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação, Chalmers Tekniska Hoegskola AB, University College London, VITO, Geološki Zavod Slovenije, Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning, Geological Survey of Finland, Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, Boliden Mineral AB, ecosystem, Ecogenesys, WEEECycling, Lovisagruvan, University of Belgrade Faculty of Mining & Geology, Duncan Kushnir, RECHARGE, Stiftung GRS Batterien, European Metals Recycling, Mace, Otanmäki Mine Oy.
A special report by Economiacircolare.com in collaboration with FutuRaM. Edited by Daniele Di Stefano, Raffaele Lupoli and Alessandro Coltrè. Translated by Maria Cristina Leone, with AI support. Cover, visuals and infographics: Chiara Arnone
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