Collection and separation are the primary activities in establishing a circular economy. The process of the collection includes establishing collection points of the products at their end of life. Depending on the regulatory rules, the collection of the products will be facilitated by the manufacturer of the product or the government.
After collection, products are routed to different recovery activities such as reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, recycling, depending on their end state and reverse supply chain opportunities. Once the products are collected, they are dismantled and separated into particular components and routed to specific recovery activities. The choice of recovery activities depends on a variety of factors such as technical constraints, costs and benefits, quality of end products, and others. A high collection rate is imperative for better recovery.
Legal and regulatory
The following criteria should be considered for improving collection rates of end-of-life products embedded with technology metals:
- UK EV batteries collection targets and mechanisms — no UK collection targets for industrial batteries currently exist, albeit this is expected to change with new batteries regulations, and with better regulations aimed at targeted critical minerals recovery and more efficient routes to reuse, refurbishement and remanufacture. For example, the new EU battery regulations set specific collection targets for batteries
- Distinction between industrial and consumer products — industrial users are more likely to deal with end-of-life (EoL) products in a structured fashion; however, the methods of dealing with EoL waste may not be geared towards extracting maximum value
- Leasing and servitisation models are likely to facilitate higher collection rates