Brits urged to go ‘urban mining’ for copper in ‘drawers of doom’

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A new study suggests that forgotten drawers containing old phones, cables, and electrical goods could cumulatively contain nearly 40,000 tonnes of valuable copper

A new study from Recycle Your Electricals is this week encouraging Brit’s to begin ‘urban mining’ – digging through drawers of unused electrical equipment – as part of efforts to recycle valuable copper.

According to the study, these “drawers of doom” across the UK could contain up to 38,449 tonnes of copper in the form of unused devices and related cables. This reclaimed metal, the researchers say, could provide 30% of the copper the UK needs to transition to a decarbonised energy grid by 2030.

Global demand for copper is increasingly outstripping supply in recent years, partly because of an increasing global focus on deploying renewable energy infrastructure and building electric vehicles, both of which rely heavily on copper wiring for their internal systems.

As such, experts predict that the world will face severe copper shortages over the next decade.

“We all have our own stashes of unused or broken electricals. But it’s time that we realised the value and power of the silent majority; the hidden treasures inside our homes,” said Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus, the non-profit behind the Recycle Your Electricals campaign. “People may not realise that cables and electricals contain valuable materials, not just copper, and that if binned or stashed, we lose everything inside of them when we don’t recycle them into something new.”

“We need to start ‘urban mining’ and help protect the planet and nature from the harmful impacts of mining for raw materials and instead value and use what we have already,” he added. “Anything with a plug, battery or cable can be reused and recycled and there’s somewhere near you to do it.”

The concept of recycling unused copper is one global telecoms operators are increasingly well acquainted with. As the world’s broadband networks transition to fibre optic technology, the now obsolete copper networks largely remain buried underground, waiting to be reclaimed. And, with copper prices rising, recycling these networks can be extremely lucrative.

According to a report from TXO earlier this year, around $7 billion of unused copper could be reclaimed by the global telecoms community over the next decade.

In fact, largescale copper recycling efforts by some of the world’s largest telcos are already underway, providing a significant novel revenue stream at a time when traditional revenues remain flat. At the start of this month, for example, BT announced that it had raised £105 million from the sale of surplus copper cables.

The operator says it aims to recover 200,000 tonnes of copper over the next decade.

Is the telecoms industry doing enough to recycle its legacy networks? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Connected North conference

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