1. As one of the world's largest copper recyclers and metal recyclers, Aurubis uses recycled materials for product manufacturing. The company recovers copper alloy waste, scraps, electroplating slime, slag and dust from foundries and semi-finished products manufacturing plants.
2. The Aurubis plant processes a mixture of copper concentrate and recycled materials during the smelting process, and the final products are copper tubes, electronic scrap and casting slag. By-products such as lead, bismuth, antimony and tellurium are separated in lead refineries and sold as concentrates.
3. "Keep looping": Purchases copper, copper alloy scrap and copper-containing residues for recycling.
4. Economic: Use waste generated by other companies as raw materials for high reuse or recycling.
Environmental: Reduce the risk of environmental pollution, avoid the environmental impact caused by primitive mining, and cope with the depletion of natural resources
5． Waste to wealth (upcycling)
6. Boliden – Metals for modern life
This idea proposes an interesting intervention in machine and factory production. By re-refining the metalloid waste of other smelting plants, Aurubis helps to perpetuate a circular economy of metal reuse. In addition, the plant is profitable; according to their financial quarterly reports from the past year, they have been steadily increasing in their profits. The copper that is processed by Aurubis accomplishes all of the mentioned benefits as stated above in terms of the environment, including the reduction of mining and processing of fossil fuels and natural resources.
What was unclear to me, both from the post and the company’s website, is the financial aspect of the company's “pitch”. Surely, the process of searching for the appropriate metals in foundries costs money, as well as the normative maintenance of a smelting plant upgraded to be climate-friendly. Somehow, the company also claims to have found a way to reduce CO2 emissions throughout their process, which, while being plausible given the company’s aims to be green-house friendly, doesn’t make sense with their profit sheet. How are they attracting consumers for their project? This process must be expensive, as it is enhanced for maximal reduction of emissions. Surely, they must be selling to account for this upgraded process and to cover the costs of material harvesting from foundries (which doesn’t necessarily guarantee product). In addition, buying metalloids in bulk from a normal smelting plant must be cheaper than an Aurubis smelting plant; therefore either the company is selling at a competitive price with other smelting plants (which wouldn’t ensure their profits), or they are more expensive. Either way, the process doesn’t guarantee a steady stream of income more so than other smelting plants.Therefore, I am struggling to understand how they are still profiting from their product, when the market value of the product must be competitive with other metalloids on the market in addition to boasting a better economic value.
Generally, one of the most difficult issues industrial environmentalists face is how to make their solution to an industrial problem profitable for the industry in question. If it costs more to change the process of production to be more environmentally friendly, and doesn’t guarantee an edge on the market over other goods, it is difficult to pitch it to company owners and manufacturers. In other words, if the cost-to-benefit ratio isn’t worth the change, then companies won’t take on the proffered solutions.
In today’s modern age, environmentalists cannot only preach methods of substitution, but have to learn how to market to the marketplace itself; to develop solutions that are not only practical and environmentally-friendly, but benefit the industry itself.
I would also like to understand the grade and quality of the metalloids produced. What about the process helps to “renew” the metal? Is there a certain amount of times that the metal can be “renewed” without affecting the level of quality afterwards? Also, the process itself must emit CO2–is the reduction of CO2 that the company lays claim to in the processing of the metalloids substantial in comparison to other factories? How do they plan to reduce their CO2 emissions throughout their process?
You also mention Boliden, presumably as another innovative company trying to reduce its impact on the environment. It’s true that the company helps to reduce the amount of lead battery and electronic appliance waste by recycling the parts, which is not insignificant to the total impact on CO2 emissions. What may be seen as insignificant, however, is the reduction of mined resources. On the sustainability page of the website, the company only lists three years of mined material weights, which is not a big enough sample size to show if the results of the company are statistically significant. Due to the lack of available information (which, admittedly, can likely be resolved by asking the company), we can’t reasonably predict future results. Likewise, I’m curious to see how a mining company is trying to be more environmentally-friendly, when mining itself costs the environment fossil fuels and future CO2 emissions in their processing.
All in all, you bring incredible examples of companies trying to reduce their environmental impact. Notably, these examples also focus on the main perpetrators of CO2 emissions, and the largest opponents to the circular economy: the burning of fossil fuels. As of 2021, CO2 emissions rose to their highest level in history, mainly due to fossil fuels being burnt to power a return to normal life after the pandemic (see link at the bottom for article). While change on the individual level is necessary, we must simultaneously find methods to help industry, like in the cases of Aurubis and Boliden, to reduce global emissions.
https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highest-level-in-history-in-2021