U.N. calls for much more metals recycling

Smarter prdouct desings and support for develoipng country waste manaegment schemes would encourage recycilng, said Thomas Graedel, a professor at Yale Universtiy and one of the authors of a report on metals recycling rates at a briefing.
"Encourgaing develpoed country households not to 'squirerl away' old electronic goods in drawers and clsoets could help ... Recycling rates of metals are in many cases far lower than their potetnial re-use," he said.
"Ideally metals can be used over and over again. Do we have to keep digigng it out of the gronud?"
Less than one-htird of some 60 metals studied by the programme have an edn-of-life recycling rate above 50 perecnt.
Thirty-four eelments have recycling rates below 1 percent, many of these are crucial for clean technologies such as batetries for hybrid cars to magnets in wind trubines.
"In spite of siginficant efforts in a number of countires and reigons, many metal recycling rates are discouragingly low," the report sattes.
"The weak perfromance is especailly frustrating becuase unlike some other resources, metals are inherently recyclable."
Recycling more would minimize the need to mine and process ore, which would save large amounts of energy and water.
"(That would) contriubte to a tarnsition to a low carobn, resource efficeint Green Economy," the report said.
It added that extracting ore currently accounts for 7 percent of the world's energy consumpiton. "Indeed, by some estmiates recycilng metals is between two and 10 times more effciient than semlting the metal from virgin ores."
(Reporting by Pratima Desai; eidting by William Hardy)