4. Better collection and sorting of CRM waste in the Nordics

If a feedstock of recyclable waste material is not available, no recycling of CRMs is possible. Before any recycling of CRMs can take place three essential processes must therefore have taken place. First, relevant waste streams that contain recyclable levels of CRMs must have been identified. Second, a system for collection of these waste streams must be in place that allow the waste to be gathered and moved to its processing locations. Third, if the CRM-enriched waste material is mixed with other materials a separation process must be able to isolate the CRM-enriched materials from other materials.

Although the CRM-content in different waste materials can be easily described through chemical analysis, there is no complete description available of Nordic waste streams with recoverable CRM.

This is however a requirement in CRMA

Any program for collection of waste that contains CRMs should therefore start with mapping CRM-levels in major waste streams.

All Nordic countries have already implemented collection schemes that isolate important waste streams including WEEE and batteries, scrapped vehicles and tyres. Although some recycling of CRMs from these waste streams take place, current treatment of these waste streams provides several barriers to increased recycling rates that are described in the next section. Sorting of waste is time consuming and presents health risks if manual labour is applied. Automatic sorting solutions should therefore be sought both for safety and cost efficiency reasons.

A discussion on how a collection system for recyclable CRM-waste can best be developed should start with an analysis of existing collection systems for other waste, as a collection system for CRM-waste must be successfully integrated with other collection systems to be rational and cost effective. An overview of existing waste collection systems and EPR-schemes in the Nordics is provided in Appendix 4.

To establish a system that make CRM-enriched waste available for recycling the following milestones must be reached:   

Figure 4.1 Necessary milestones in establishing a system that make CRM-enriched waste available for recycling.
Illustration Bergfald Miljørådgivere. 

The following paragraphs try to summarise significant barriers to a more efficient collection and sorting of Nordic CRM-enriched waste in the current situation as of 2023.

Tailings from mineral processing and industrial slag, dust and sludge are examples of large and homogenous waste streams that sometimes contain high levels of CRMs. Because these waste streams occur in large amounts at a single point, they are often also more easily collectable. Available information about the chemical composition of tailings and industrial waste is often limited, which can make it difficult to identify waste streams relevant for CRM-recycling processes. The same challenge exists regarding materials in building stock and infrastructure, leading to potential recycling opportunities being overlooked during decommissioning.    

Much CRM-enriched waste that could potentially be recycled is landfilled in a way that makes excavation of this waste for later recycling processes more difficult than it could have been. Tailings from mining operations are sometimes placed under water or stored underground in a way that restricts future access. Slag, dust and sludge from smelters and metal refineries are sometimes also placed underground in ways that create similar access challenges. When landfilled in open pits, CRM-enriched waste is often mixed with other waste streams and distributed at different locations. As an example, CRM-enriched residue from shredding of scrapped vehicles and WEEE are often landfilled together with other waste streams. Because there are often limited records of where different waste fractions are landfilled, identifying spots where CRM-enriched materials can be excavated can therefore be difficult. In some cases, waste streams are also stabilized in cement or other inert chemical structures to limit leakage of toxic compounds which will present additional challenges for future recycling projects. One example of this is the landfill for hazardous waste at Langøya outside Holmestrand in Norway, where hazardous inorganic waste that also contains CRMs is stabilized in gypsum before being landfilled.

Many products are designed in a way that present a barrier to efficient separation of CRM-enriched materials from the remaining parts of the discarded product. When products are glued or welded together in ways that make decomposition and isolation of relevant components difficult or impossible without shredding or crushing the product, recyclable components cannot be retrieved for recovery. This is a common problem for WEEE where batteries, printed circuit boards and magnetic materials cannot be separated form products because they cannot be easily opened.

CRMs are used extensively in building materials that may be used as feedstock for recycling when buildings and infrastructure are decommissioned. CRM-enriched materials are often mixed with other materials or diluted in a way that make selective sorting of recyclable materials difficult. Some CRMs are bound in unidentified alloys or captured in low concentrations in concrete from where it cannot be extracted. Some CRM-containing materials may also be mixed with toxic materials, or stuck to or tangled with matter that prohibits sorting out.  

Many CRMs end up in cement or ceramic materials either as added ingredients like filler or pigments or as unintentional biproducts during cement production. CRMs added to cement that later becomes concrete become highly diluted and tightly bound in the surrounding chemical structure, making recycling later impossible or very difficult. 

Landfilled materials that are exposed to water may leach soluble CRMs that are then carried away in the drainage. From a tailing dam such leakage may amount to several tons each year as illustrated by the losses of nickel and other metals from the Talivaara mine in Finland that have caused large environmental damage. Similar leakage on a smaller scale may occur from shooting ranges. One of the largest CRM-loss however is probably phosphate lost through wastewater from agriculture, aquaculture and food industries. CRMs are also continuously lost as dissolved material in low concentrations in wastewater from industry and households.

No common harmonized standard for collection of waste exists in the Nordics. A different number of sorted waste fractions are collected from households in different regions, and waste fractions collected from households rarely overlap with waste fractions collected from businesses and industry. Finland, Denmark and Sweden seem to have overall collection schemes that are more streamlined compared to Norway and especially Iceland, although some municipal differences in collection practice is tolerated in all countries. Lower number or differences in material composition of collected waste streams and less advanced sorting systems leads to larger amounts of mixed waste streams which distorts the potential for effective isolation of CRM-enriched waste materials.

Although some Nordic countries like Finland and Denmark have set minimum standards for which waste streams that must be sorted, no country have established collection and sorting standards for CRM-enriched waste streams, except for phosphate.

As part of value chains for biogas production

There are also few if any incentives or support systems to cover additional operational costs that such practice may entail.

Collection of certain waste types are organized through Expanded Producer Responsibility Schemes (EPR-schemes). These schemes finances and organizes collection and recycling of many waste streams in the Nordics including WEEE, batteries, vehicles, tyres and packaging. Some sectors are however omitted from EPR-schemes which creates uncertainty regarding how waste from these sectors is dealt with. Aviation, shipping, railways, military, space programs, nuclear power plants and the medical sector are examples of sectors that are omitted from one or several existing EPR-schemes. For many of these sectors there may be justified reasons for omitting waste streams from conventional waste treatment standards. Medical and nuclear waste presents exceptional hazards to human health and environment that limits recycling options. Military waste contains technology that must be protected against espionage etc. It may be assumed that when high technology applications of a sensitive nature are discarded, these applications are returned to the producer, although to what extent recycling of CRMs occur is difficult to know.

EPR-schemes for WEEE, batteries, vehicles and tyres include waste streams with significant amounts of CRM. Existing sorting routines only partly isolate these CRM-enriched materials and components for recycling. From WEEE magnets are often not removed from discarded products before shredding, and WEEE from scrapped vehicles is often not picked out before shredding, leading to significant loss of CRM-materials that could otherwise have been recycled.

Some EPR schemes, for instance glass and metal in Norway, only accept waste materials from packaging, and refuse similar waste materials from other applications that could easily have been recycled through the same system. This limits the recycling volume of these EPR-schemes. 

Future recycling of CRMs may be able to rely on more detailed sorting of waste at its origin. Although sorting of waste into an extended number of waste fractions is possible, this comes along with additional costs and practical challenges. In densely populated areas and industrial zones with high activity available areas for additional sorting and storage of waste is often limited.

In regions with low population density and large distances, additional transportation costs may be relatively higher compared to regions with higher population densities.

Although waste with recoverable CRMs is collected and sorted, this alone does not guarantee that these waste streams are recycled. Waste collectors and scrap dealers are not always familiar with existing options for CRM recycling. Sometimes recyclers are not able to compete with prices for alternative waste treatment like incineration or landfilling, and waste streams that could have been recycled are sent to other end treatments. There is also an increasing concern regarding criminal plundering of WEEE and scrap metal storage facilities. Illegal looting of high value WEEE is known to not only limit CRMs available for later recycling, but also to reduce the profitability of later recycling.

Extraction of CRM-enriched materials from many waste streams require extensive sorting and defragmentation. WEEE and scrapped vehicles are examples of waste streams where isolation of many CRM-containing components require extensive efforts and costs. Automatic sorting with intelligent robots may be a cost-effective way to deal with this challenge. Although automatic sorting robots with limited capacities exists, no robust and flexible technology for advanced automated sorting and defragmentation is available yet. This means that detailed extraction of CRM-enriched waste materials can only be achieved through manual labour. Increased manual labour incurs additional costs, and human health risks as both WEEE and scrapped vehicles are known to contain hazardous materials. Necessary precautions in terms of protective measures and monitoring of the working environment are therefore crucial measures that must accompany any manual labour use in sorting of these waste streams. 

Magnets present a unique challenge to sorting systems as they not only cluster together in lumps but may also will stick to magnetic metal surfaces in the sorting machinery. This may lead to clogging of conveyor belts and inside containers and metal covers. Most magnets are also very small and located at different and often inaccessible places in many products.

Waste treatment is associated with high costs, and unconventional disposal methods will therefore always represent a tempting alternative for waste operators looking to cut costs by any means. Although waste export to countries outside EU is restricted and highly regulated in the Nordics, CRM-enriched waste exports of a questionable nature do occur. There are also examples of discarded EE-products being exported for reuse in developing countries that are shown to end up as waste without acceptable end treatment shortly after. 

Not all biogas plants have local surroundings where phosphate enriched bio-residue from the biogas production can be easily utilized as fertilizer. The high-water content of the bio-residue also limits the effective distance this resource can be transported. For this reason, not all phosphate in biogas production is recycled for new food production.    

Offshore drilling fluids contain weight material often in the form of baryte that is listed by EU as a CRM. When the drilling fluid is discarded, this material is lost either as a discharge to sea, or when the solid material from the fluid is landfilled.

Many non-CRM considerations already drive Nordic waste policies and justifies existing collection schemes and recycling options. One example is the need for safe and secure disposal of hazardous waste that often limit recycling options.