BIR World Recycling Convention & Exhibition 2026: Only Free Trade Offers Ideal Conditions for the Recycling Markets
During the meeting of the International Trade Council (ITC) at the BIR World Recycling Convention & Exhibition 2026 in Gothenburg (Sweden) industry experts emphasized once more that trade restrictions would obstruct the international recycling environment.
As reported by the Bureau of International Recycling, Robin Wiener, President of the Recycled Materials Association (ReMA) in the USA, pointed out that the USA would produce a surplus of recycled materials across all the commodities and so having global market access were “critical”. ITC Chairman Emmanuel Katrakis, Director of Public Regulatory Affairs at Galloo in France/Belgium, supported this view and stressed that supply and demand is not always concentrated in the same country; “to bridge that gap, we need to have access to local and global markets.”
Copper supply in the USA
To illustrate the importance of global recycling markets ReMA had conducted a study that confirms the available US end-of-life recycled copper supply significantly exceeds domestic consumption. “In 2025, it was a three and a half times ratio,” she was quoted. “And the other good news is that the tonnage of US end-of-life copper recovered is expected to continue to increase into the future and will certainly exceed supply for at least the next 15 years.” Meanwhile, a similar ReMA study into recycled aluminum would reveal a supply that is four and a half times current demand needs. Although a substantial amount of investment is being made in the USA on the industrial consumer side, ReMA’s research would confirm that the available domestic recycled supply would continue to exceed this increasing demand into the future, according to Robin Wiener.
International copper market
As reported by BIR, guest speaker Fernando Acosta, Director of Economics and Environment at the International Copper Study Group, placed recycling in the wider context of total copper supply while emphasizing its environmental and economic importance. The copper recycling rate stood at 33 percent in 2024, with concentrates typically accounting for more than half of global supply while recycled material usually represents about one third, the delegates learned.
“Higher recycling rates are not necessarily associated with higher income levels because what is relevant is the presence or the existence of a developed market,” he was quoted. Looking to the future, Fernando Acosta expects countries to continue to strengthen their supply chains as they invest more in smelting and refining capacity “in order to process more complex scrap domestically”. Assuming the world will be able to meet net-zero targets by the middle of the current century, which in the case of copper translates into supply being able to meet an expected demand of about 50 million tons, he anticipated that the market for recycled copper could have a value of about 1.7 to 2 trillion US-Dollar during this period. “So it seems that recycling, in the case of copper, is not only relevant from an environmental perspective but it’s also an interesting business opportunity,” he was cited.
However, Fernando Acosta joined his fellow guest speakers in sounding a note of caution about market distortion and uncertainty, BIR noted. Larger trend analysis by the OECD had shown that trade restrictions have been increasing over time. “The problem is that these policies can have unintended or unexpected consequences.” In particular, these could act against “the need to have clear and predictable policies in the long term to attract investment”.
(Published in GLOBAL RECYCLING Magazine 2/2026, Page 29, Photo: O. Kürth)
