Recycling’s is a security issue. Will Europe treat it like one?

With supply chains still fragile and geopolitical competition only intensifying, Europe’s reliance on imported critical raw materials has turned from a long-term concern to a strategic a vulnerability now unfolding. As the EU pushes forward with its green and digital transitions, demand for materials like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths is rising fast. And while extraction remains part of the picture, recycling can’t be treated as a side issue. It needs to be front and center, serving both as an environmental solution, and as a strategic pillar of Europe’s industrial and economic resilience.

In 2023, only 11.8% of the materials used in the EU came from recycling That’s better than the 8.2% recorded in 2004, but it’s still far too low if the goal is to serve the EU climate ambitions while strengthening our industrial base.

Nearly 90% of Europe’s material use still comes from virgin resources. That’s a massive, missed opportunity, especially at a time when we know demand is only going to keep growing.

The EU is starting to respond to change this picture. The revised Critical Raw Materials Act sets a target for 15% of critical raw material use to come from recycling by 2030. The message is clear: unless Europe improves recovery from end-of-life products, it will stay at the mercy of trade disruptions, market shocks, and foreign supply chains.

Closing the loop on strategic dependencies

Whether we’re talking about electric vehicles, wind turbines, smartphones, or data centers, the technologies driving Europe’s future all are resource-intensive, depending on critical raw materials. But the supply of those materials is often concentrated in just a few countries. Over 90% of rare earth magnets used in the EU, for example, come from China. Boron? Mostly from Turkey. Platinum? South Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine have exposed how quickly these supply lines can break – with major ripple effects.

Can we completely ditch mining? Realistically, no – at least not yet. But we can mine less and smarter by tapping into what we’ve already extracted. This is the idea behind urban mining: recovering valuable materials from products and infrastructure already around us.

It won’t replace primary extraction overnight, but it can reduce dependency, strengthen supply chains, and support Europe’s climate and industrial goals. By 2040, the IEA estimates up to 35% of copper and 20% of lithium used in clean energy tech could come from recycled sources.

Europe already recycles around 60% of its aluminium and 50% of its copper, but rates for newer or more complex critical materials remain low. Rare earth elements, for example, have a recycling rate of under 1% – mostly due to poor product design, limited collection, and inadequate sorting systems.

Barriers to scaling recovery

The main obstacles are not as much technical as they’re systemic. Valuable materials are lost because products aren’t collected, aren’t designed for disassembly, or are exported with little oversight. This doesn’t just apply to electronics or batteries – the same goes for tyres, an often-overlooked stream with major strategic importance – but that’s a whole different topic.

Poor design and the lack of harmonised standards make recovery costly or even impossible. Many products are built to last, not to be dismantled. Rare earth magnets, for instance, are often glued deep inside devices, making extraction uneconomical.

This is where EU policy can make a difference. The upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and the Digital Product Passport (DPP) aim to ensure recyclability, disassembly, and traceability are built in from the start. If done right, they could unlock large volumes of  materials that could be recycling but are currently slipping through the cracks. We have high hopes for ESPR, especially for the delegated act on iron and steel, now being prepared by the Commission and the Joint Research Centre.

Strategic autonomy starts at home

Europe must start treating recycling infrastructure as strategic – on par with energy, transport, and defense. That means creating the right incentives to boost investment in advanced sorting and recycling technologies that deliver high-quality recyclates.

But investment alone isn’t enough. 

Regulation needs to enable, not constrain. The revised Waste Shipment Regulation, for example, risks creating bottlenecks by restricting the movement of strategic recycled materials that are still classified legally as waste\ Without a flexible, risk-based approach, we risk stalling recovery efforts and losing access to key markets before domestic demand is ready.

If strategic autonomy is to start at home, the EU must mandate the use of recycled content in new products and ensure there is strong, stable demand for recycled materials.

In the current geopolitical and financial context, seeing recycling only as an environmental option is a short-sighted vision. We’re no longer talking only about reducing the alarming amounts of waste we generate or achieving better recycling rates for some streams. We are talking about letting Europe go off dependencies on third-party supplies, protecting against price volatility, and rebuilding its industrial base – all while advancing climate goals and cutting emissions.

Europe must leverage the materials it already possesses, hidden in plain sight, embedded in state-of-the-art technologies that are already available. Because recycling is a security issue. Will Europe finally treat it like one?