Vast amounts of valuable materials buried inside old batteries, electronic waste, and end-of-life vehicles should be collected for critical materials. Credit: FutuRaM
SRINAGAR, India, May 27 2026 (IPS) - Europe’s growing mountain of waste could become one of its most important sources of critical raw materials, according to a major new report that warns of rising geopolitical risks and growing global competition for minerals needed in the green and digital economy.
The report, released by the Horizon Europe-funded FutuRaM project, says Europe’s “urban mine” now contains vast amounts of valuable materials buried inside old batteries, electronic waste, end-of-life vehicles, construction debris and dismantled wind turbines.
Researchers behind the project say Europe must urgently improve recycling, recovery and tracking systems if it wants to reduce dependence on imported critical raw materials, many of which are dominated by a handful of countries.
“The FutuRaM project represents a substantial step forward in strengthening the knowledge base on secondary raw materials and CRMs within Europe’s urban mine,” the report states.
Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist, Sustainable Cycles at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an exclusive interview that the research mapped 42 Carbon-based Conductive Materials [CMS] in seven waste streams. It shows that the current substitution potential for primary materials in the final consumption of CRMs is a maximum of 27% overall.
“By 2050, the substitution potential could increase to over 50%. At the same time, 10 more than now (so, up to 24 different CRMs) could be sourced from the analysed waste streams. The new ones include rare earth elements found for instance in permanent magnets, such as Nd, Dy, Tb, Sm and Pr, but also Li, Co and Ce in batteries,” Baldé said.
The study comes at a time when European governments are racing to secure supplies of lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements used in electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and digital technologies.
Researchers said the project was developed amid “increasing geopolitical uncertainty, accelerating energy and digital transitions, and growing concerns regarding the security of supply of critical raw materials.”
When asked how vulnerable Europe is today when it comes to materials like lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements, Baldé said that most of them are sourced outside of the EU and supplied from single or only a few countries.
“Yet, they are critical for digitisation, renewable energy technology, and the military. Hence, they are on the critical raw material lists from the EU, and make the EU vulnerable.”
The report covers seven major waste streams, including waste batteries, construction and demolition waste, end-of-life vehicles, mining waste, slags and ashes, waste electrical and electronic equipment, and dismantled wind turbines.
One of the project’s key findings is that Europe still loses significant amounts of valuable materials because of weak collection systems, fragmented reporting rules and illegal waste flows.
“Persistent fragmentation of waste classifications, reporting systems and end-of-waste criteria across EU Member States undermines the functioning of the single market for secondary raw materials,” the report warns.
According to Baldé, the best sectors in terms of highest recovery rates and lowest tonnages of losses in tonnages are end-of-life vehicles and construction and demolition waste.
“Both have high collection rates and separate collection for some CRM rich components, such as Al and Cu. Despite this, there are still losses for several CRMs, such as rare earth metals, as indicated above. Biggest weaknesses in terms of tonnages of losses are industrial residues, such as slags and ashes,” Baldé said.
Using long-term modelling up to 2050, the project examined how different policies and recycling systems could affect future material recovery. Researchers developed three scenarios called business as usual, recovery, and circularity.
The report says improved recovery systems could significantly increase the amount of usable materials extracted from waste streams. Researchers also created a new recovery model that distinguishes between raw materials hidden inside waste and the materials that can actually be recovered after treatment.
Waste electrical and electronic equipment, commonly known as ‘e-waste’, has emerged as one of the most important future sources of valuable minerals. The study examined critical materials, including silver, gold, cobalt, gallium, neodymium, palladium and tungsten, found in electronic products.
Construction and demolition waste has one of the highest rates of waste recovery. Credit: FutuRaM
