Gold Recycling Industry contributes a third of global Gold supply: WGC

UNITED KINGDOM March 05 2015 2:40 PM

 

LONDON (Scrap Register): The new report from World Gold Council examined the Gold Recycling Industry that contributes a third of global gold supply.

 

“The Ups and Downs of Gold Recycling: Understanding Market Drivers and Industry Challenges,” written and published by the WGC and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), analyses the economic drivers of the global gold recycling market and highlights important future industry trends including; a shift in concentration of gold recycling from west to east, increased difficulty in obtaining gold from electronic products as less is used in modern devices, and potential consolidation within the recycling industry across the entire value chain.

 

The report shows that between 1995 and 2014, recycled gold accounted for, on average, about a third of total supply. This average belies the dynamic, responsive nature of recycling. An analysis of recycling data from 1982 to 2012 reveals that price fluctuations accounted for around 75 percent of the changes in recycling volumes and that economic shocks can boost recycling by up to 20 percent. 

 

The report examines the challenges and opportunities facing the gold recycling industry, which has two main components; high-value recycled gold3 and industrial recycled gold4. The growing volume in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) offers opportunities for industrial materials recycling, although obtaining gold from this material will become ever harder as smaller amounts of gold are used in them. 

 

Furthermore, as Asia’s stock of gold keeps growing the ‘centre of gravity’ for gold recycling will likely shift east. India’s and China’s gold jewellery consumption rose from 28 percent of the global total in 2004 to 60 percent in 2014 and as a consequence local competition for gold recycling business could heat up in Asia.