Poland’s largest recycling company, Elemental Group, has announced large-scale investments in the recycling of copper and battery metals. The projects are aimed at developing our own production in Europe and reducing dependence on supplies from China.
Elemental Group CEO Pavel Jarski said the company plans to invest about $800 million in the construction of new facilities. The bulk of the funds will be used to create a copper smelting and purification plant, the rest – to a processing plant metals from electric vehicle batteries.
The projects are being implemented as part of the Polvolt initiative and have already received financial support from the European Union and the Polish government. The EU expects that the development of its own processing of critical materials will strengthen industrial safety, since today China controls a significant part of the world production of rare and strategically important metals.
In the early years, Elemental intends to focus on copper and e-waste, areas where the company already has a strong position. Elemental calls itself the largest “urban miner” in the region, extracting metals from discarded vehicles, auto components and electronics. Previously, the main business was the processing of automobile catalysts.
The new copper smelter will also process silver, gold and a number of rare metals. The company notes that demand for copper is growing amid the development of data centers, electronics and artificial intelligence technologies, and the number of buyers in the market today significantly exceeds the number of sellers.
A separate area is the recycling of electric vehicle batteries. Elemental already operates a plant in southern Poland that produces so-called “black mass” from waste batteries. Now a significant part of these products is sent for further processing to China. The goal of the new investment is to close the entire loop in Europe if it proves economically feasible.
The company emphasizes that entering new markets will depend on real demand and availability of technology. The first large volumes of recyclable batteries are expected in the coming years.
The Elemental Group believes that growing protectionism and restrictions on global trade make local processing capacity strategically important. New projects should double the company’s revenue in the next five years and strengthen Europe’s position in the market critical metals.
Source: MINING.COM
Photo: Elemental Group
