Isra-Mart srl : MPs: Recycling can help overcome rare metal shortages

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UK companies are running out of metals crucial for many green technologies and will becoming increasingly reliant on a small number of suppliers unless urgent action is taken, MPs will today warn.

A report published by the influential Science and Technology Committee later today will say that rare metals used to make clean technologies such as solar panels are likely to be increasingly subject to volatile prices and supply restrictions.

The Committee says concern over scarcities will mount if China, which controls around 97 per cent of the supply of rare earth elements, maintains export quotas and hedge funds continue to buying up large quantities - even though metals such as palladium and platinum are unlikely to run out in the coming decades.

To combat these effects it says UK firms should either use lower grade metals or increase their efforts to reuse rare elements.

The UK is recycling around 90 per cent of its rare metal waste by weight and recovering substantial quantities of platinum, rhodium, palladium, gold and silver from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). But the Committee says some strategic metals, often present in products in small quantities, are currently lost.

It recommends manufacturers adopt a "cradle-to-cradle approach", where products are designed with end of life disassembly in mind, and urges firms to reduce exports of scrap metal and WEEE materials.

The UK has attempted to clamp down on illegal exports of faulty or potentially hazardous electric equipment, which are banned by the EU, but Committee chair Andrew Miller MP, said it could be doing more.

"The Government is keen to burnish its green credentials but it is unacceptable for the UK to export its environmental problems elsewhere," he said. "We urge the Government to engage with the governments of countries importing these materials to encourage higher environmental standards and adequate working practices for those processing the waste."

More controversially, the Committee also notes there are unexploited deposits of various strategic metals in the UK, but the economics and environmental affects of mining them are not known.

It calls on the government to investigate if these metals can be tapped while ensuring domestic mining has the least possible environmental impact.