Glencore Digs Deep into Recycling to Meet Surging Copper Demand
Global mining giant Glencore is tapping into a new quarry—not in the earth, but in America's junk drawers, old phones, and landfills—in its bid to meet the surging demand for copper driven by the energy transition and data boom. Outside its 97-year-old copper smelter in Quebec, Canada, shredded electronics, obsolete computer cables, and scrapped vehicles are piled 30 feet high, ready to be recycled. The scrap is melted down alongside copper concentrate from mines to produce new slabs of metal.
Glencore, along with other major copper producers, has long relied on old electronics to supplement production at its smelters. But now, as the shift to renewable energy reshapes commodity markets, the company is making bigger bets on recycling to meet demand. According to Kunal Sinha, Glencore's global head of recycling, "In the next 25 years we will consume more copper than humanity has consumed until now. That's the scale of the challenge."
As the world transitions from fossil fuels to renewable electricity, the need for copper—essential for electric vehicles, utility infrastructure, and data centers—is expected to soar. Glencore estimates that global copper supply will need to grow by around one million metric tons annually through 2050. However, developing new mines is a lengthy process, often taking decades, which limits the industry's ability to respond quickly to growing demand. In the meantime, recycled copper from scrap is increasingly seen as a vital resource for balancing the market.
Glencore's Horne Smelter in Quebec has been involved in electronics recycling since the 1980s. Recently, the company acquired a failed electronics recycling facility in Arkansas, which will further aid its scrap collection efforts. Glencore's network stretches across multiple facilities in the U.S., including sites in California and Rhode Island that collect and assess scrap for valuable metals like copper, gold, and silver. Traders in Toronto, Switzerland, and New York are tasked with sourcing scrap material from around 40 countries.
The recycled copper collected at Horne Smelter, which accounts for about 15% of the facility's input, is blended with traditional copper concentrate and heated to 1,200 degrees Celsius. Eventually, 750-pound anodes are cast, which are then transported 400 miles to Glencore's Montreal refinery to be purified further, yielding not just copper but also traces of platinum, palladium, and other precious metals.
Glencore is also collaborating with electronics and solar panel manufacturers to design products that are easier to disassemble and recycle. Moreover, the company has begun exploring landfills for untapped copper in automotive waste, known as auto shredded residue or "auto fluff." Trials have shown that the concentration of copper in landfilled auto fluff can be over twice as high as that found in geological mines.
As copper prices continue to hover near record levels, recycling is becoming a more lucrative avenue. Tom Mulqueen, a metals strategist at Citigroup, pointed out that the level of scrap recovered often directly impacts the price of copper, and high prices are an incentive for further scrap recovery. By 2050, it is estimated that nearly half of the world's copper demand will be met through recycling, up from about a third today.
