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Losses and lifetimes of metals in the economy

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 717–726 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 31 May 2022

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Abstract

The consumption of most metals continues to rise following ever-increasing population growth, affluence and technological development. Sustainability considerations urge greater resource efficiency and retention of metals in the economy. We model the fate of a yearly cohort of 61 extracted metals over time and identify where losses are expected to occur through a life-cycle lens. We find that ferrous metals have the longest lifetimes, with 150 years on average, followed by precious, non-ferrous and specialty metals with 61, 50 and 12 years on average, respectively. Production losses are the largest for 15 of the studied metals whereas use losses are the largest for barium, mercury and strontium. Losses to waste management and recycling are the largest for 43 metals, suggesting the need to improve design for better sorting and recycling and to ensure longer-lasting products, in combination with improving waste-management practices. Compared with the United Nations Environmental Programme’s recycling statistics, our results show the importance of taking a life-cycle perspective to estimate losses of metals to develop effective circular economy strategies. We provide the dataset and model used in a machine-readable format to allow further research on metal cycles.

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Fig. 1: Global cycle of metals.
Fig. 2: Distribution of metal losses per life-cycle phase and average lifetimes of metals in the economy.
Fig. 3: The average lifetimes of metals in the economy versus average global annual production between 2015 and 2019.
Fig. 4: Predicted in-use stocks and losses of metals over two centuries for a yearly cohort of extracted metals.
Fig. 5: Loss rates versus EOL-RR and recycled content.

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Data availability

The data compiled for this research as well as the data and results depicted in Figs. 2–5 are provided in Supplementary Data and documented in Supplementary Information. The machine-readable datasets are provided in the standardized Open Dynamic Material Systems Model (ODYM) format67 and are available in an OSF repository at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CWU3D (ref. 68).

Code availability

The Python code is provided in the ODYM format67 and is available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CWU3D (ref. 68).

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Acknowledgements

The PhD research project of A.C.P. was financed by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) and the BRGM. We acknowledge the organizations (in particular, the Center for Industrial Ecology of Yale University and the US Geological Survey) and researchers that produced and published the data underlying this article. We also acknowledge the MaTrace model initially developed by S. Nakamura et al. and thank S. Pauliuk and N. Heeren for developing the open ODYM software framework.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Bordeaux INP, ISM, Talence, France

    Alexandre Charpentier Poncelet, Philippe Loubet & Guido Sonnemann

  2. Resource Lab, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Christoph Helbig, Andrea Thorenz & Axel Tuma

  3. Ecological Resource Technology, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Christoph Helbig

  4. BRGM, Orléans, France

    Antoine Beylot, Stéphanie Muller & Jacques Villeneuve

  5. Arts et Métiers, University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Bordeaux INP, I2M, Talence, France

    Bertrand Laratte

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Contributions

The initial design of this research project originates from C.H., A. Thorenz and A. Tuma. A.C.P. and C.H. conducted methodological developments. A.C.P. assembled and documented the data, drafted the article and produced Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 5. C.H. wrote the Python code and produced Fig. 3, the right side of Fig. 4 and Supplementary Figs. 2–62 (the supplementary figures are generated with the code). A.B. and P.L. substantially participated in revising the draft and the final paper. S.M., J.V., B.L., A. Thorenz, A. Tuma and G.S. supervised the work and revised the draft and the final paper.

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Correspondence to Alexandre Charpentier Poncelet or Christoph Helbig.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Shahana Althaf and Tomer Fishman for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Methods, Tables 1–70 and Figs. 1–62.

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This workbook contains all of the compiled data, references and results presented in Figs. 2–5 of the article and Supplementary Figs. 2–62.

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Charpentier Poncelet, A., Helbig, C., Loubet, P. et al. Losses and lifetimes of metals in the economy. Nat Sustain 5, 717–726 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00895-8

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