Why are miners diversifying into metals and minerals recycling?

Metals recycling is increasingly becoming a priority for mining companies. Credit: ako photography / Shutterstock

South African-based mining company Sibanye-Stillwater is one of the world’s largest primary producers of platinum, palladium and rhodium, as well as a top-tier gold producer. Perhaps surprisingly, it is also a large recycler, processing 310,000oz of platinum group metals in 2023 – representing 13.3% of the company’s revenue. 

Last year, Sibanye-Stillwater expanded its recycling portfolio with the acquisition of industrial and electronic waste recycler Abington Reldan Metals. The US-based company produces both green precious and base metals through a range of services including aggregation, collection, dismantling, processing, shredding and transportation.  

Sibanye-Stillwater was an early mover in what is now a growing trend of miners diversifying into the recycling sector. Whether it is through acquiring equity stakes in recycling companies, establishing joint ventures or funding the development of proprietary technologies, several global miners are tentatively dipping their toes into the metals and minerals recycling industry.

In December at Resourcing Tomorrow in London, Laurent Charbonnier, the chief commercial and development officer at Sibanye-Stillwater, said: “Companies are starting to look at where the metals are, and not just where the mines are.” 

They include multinational mining company Glencore – a long-standing recycler of end-of-life electronics, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and other critical metal-containing products – which last year invested $75m (SFr68.16m) in Li-Cycle, a Li-ion battery resource recovery company. In September, the Anglo-Swiss company also formed a partnership with Strategic Metals to explore US-based downstream processing of cobalt and copper intermediate products from the La Cobaltera project in Chile. 

Meanwhile, in 2023, Rio Tinto paid $700m to buy a 50% equity stake in scrap metal recycler Matalco from Giampaolo Group. The company has six facilities producing around 900,000t of recycled aluminium per annum. At the time, Rio Tinto said the investment would expand its aluminium business in the US, “where demand for the recycled material is forecast to increase by more than 70% from 2022 to 2032, driven by the transportation, construction and packaging sectors”. 

Similarly, in 2023 Albemarle Corporation committed $1.3bn to its US-based Mega-Flex Processing Facility for lithium recycling from batteries. The facility was expected to produce approximately 50,000t of battery-grade lithium hydroxide from multiple sources, with the potential to expand up to 100,000t. Construction was initially slated to begin in 2024, but Albemarle has rephased some of its capital investment plans, including those for the proposed Richburg facility, due to market conditions.  

An Albemarle company spokesperson told MINE: “We remain committed to building a resilient domestic supply chain. However, the reinvestment economics need to align and given continued low lithium pricing, those economics are not there.”

Industry experts say this trend is being driven by a perfect storm of rising demand for critical minerals, increasing lead times for new mining projects – which have risen from an average of 12.7 to 17.9 years, according to recent data – changing policy and increasing sustainability requirements. 

For example, the importance of critical and strategic minerals and metals such as lithium, cobalt and copper to the energy transition (the catalyst for increasing demand) and China’s dominance over them has sparked legislation and incentives for more home-sourced supply in both the US and the EU. 

Meanwhile, today’s mining projects face spiralling permitting challenges amid anti-development sentiment. As Laura Tyler, CEO and MD of Adriatic Minerals said at Resourcing Tomorrow: “Everyone wants a phone, but no one wants a mine.” 

Considering these factors, recycling can be a boon for miners, says Philip Duah a PhD mining engineering student at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, who was recently awarded the 2024 Student LCA Leadership Award from the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment.

“Combining mining investments with recycling initiatives not only accelerates material availability but also ensures a more sustainable supply chain and a strategic move to establish a presence across the entire value chain, from primary extraction to secondary resource recovery. This is a win-win business model,” he says. 

Randal Huffsmith, a senior vice-president at technical consultancy WSP, agrees: “Miners know they can market those products worldwide and make a profit on them; whether they come from recycling or as ore that is crushed ground and processed, the end product is something they sell.” 

The business model has worked well for Glencore, which also has a commodities trading arm. Its recycling unit already contributes more than $200m, with broker UBS predicting its 2023 deal with Li-Cycle could quadruple this by 2028.

These investments, which can provide crucial financial support to recycling companies, are also often supported by favourable policies. For example, the US Department of Energy has committed $16bn in investments to bolster recycling technologies and infrastructure. What is more, the Inflation Reduction Act offers EV tax credits for batteries containing North American recycled critical minerals. 

Similarly, the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act and the European Raw Materials Alliance require that at least 25% of the EU’s annual consumption comes from domestic recycling – this is as demand for materials such as aluminium, silicon, copper and nickel are projected to rise. 

Arguably these policy shifts and incentives are driving deals such as that between Albemarle Corporation and Ford Motor Company. Starting from 2026, Albemarle will provide lithium hydroxide to Ford for five years that is either domestically produced or from a country with a US Free Trade Agreement.

Added to this is the ESG factor. Recycling can reduce mining activity, which is getting harder with lower grades and the focus of more public resistance. It can also boost a company’s sustainability credentials, something that is increasingly important to end buyers, says Alp Bora, an industry advisor and speaker who also runs a mining and metallurgy consultancy. 

“To say you are investing in recycling technologies is a great marketing tool, right?” he says. 

Rio Tinto, for example, is now marketing Matalco products, enabling it to say it offers a "full suite of aluminium products including low-carbon primary aluminium made with hydropower".

Bora believes being in the full value chain is important for mining companies. ArcelorMittal, he says, is an example of doing this well. The company has iron ore mines, steel plants and manufacturing facilities. 

“They make their products all the way to the end user and as part of their electric arc furnace technology they use a lot of recycled scrap metal,” explains Bora. “I think there is a great opportunity for mining companies to be more present in this industry.”

However, metals recycling is notoriously challenging technology-wise and requires a wave of innovation. For example, zinc can be easily recycled but it is often mixed with plastics and other metals that must be hand-removed before processing, a time-consuming task. Similarly, put recycled material that is mixed with another material into a blast furnace worth a million-odd dollars and it can potentially destroy the machine. 

Investment from mining companies can help the industry innovate and overcome some of these challenges, however. For example, Glencore's collaboration with Li-Cycle in Europe involves co-developing infrastructure. What is more, statistics from GlobalData show that in the past three years there have been more than 3,000 patents filed and granted in the mining industry, including in recycling. The research highlights Barrick Gold, Enos and Vale as key players in battery metal recycling.

In addition, miners are also starting to look at their own operations and how to extract commodities from pit lakes and wastewater streams, says Robert Kimball, senior vice-president industrial process water at WSP. He says mining companies are interested in this as a way to pay for the long-term management of these facilities; however, this is in the early stages, with technology development still needed. 

Bora believes the mining industry is doing "amazing work" funding new technologies but is "terrible" at marketing these initiatives. Indeed, Glencore, Rio Tinto, Sibayne-Stillwater and Anglo American were contacted for comment but did not reply. 

Overall, experts believe miners’ involvement in the recycling sector is set to continue, given that no major change is expected around the major drivers – and especially as miners increasingly see recycling as completing the value chain of their business. As Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said of the Metalco acquisition: “We were kind of missing something (without) a recycled product.”