At this year’s trade fair in Frankfurt am Main, the spotlight was on the circular economy’s growing role as a strategic source of raw materials, alongside key challenges and innovative solutions.
Recycling and the circular economy are no longer discussed solely from the perspectives of sustainability and waste management. Increasingly, they are recognized as strategic sources of raw materials that can strengthen supply security, making them central to industrial and geopolitical policy. This shift was clearly reflected at the E-Waste World Conference & Expo in Frankfurt am Main. Now one of the world’s leading events for the recycling and circular economy industries, the exhibition and conference has expanded significantly year after year.
The 2026 edition took place on 17–18 June in Hall 3 of Messe Frankfurt. According to organizer Trans-Global Events, the event brought together more than 400 exhibitors, 180 speakers and panelists, and over 4,500 visitors from industry, government, and academia. Across four parallel conference tracks, participants explored the major topics shaping the circular economy: E-Waste & WEEE, Battery Recycling, Metal & Critical Raw Material Recycling, and ITAD & Circular Electronics.
A well-established meeting point for the recycling industry.
A common message ran through many presentations and discussions: the strategic importance of recycling is now widely recognized—the challenge is turning ambition into implementation. Awareness and investment in recycling technologies have grown significantly in recent years, noted Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, during his opening remarks in the E-Waste conference stream. However, his subsequent conversation with John Shegerian, CEO of the U.S. recycling company ERI, underscored a persistent problem: far too many valuable resources continue to be lost.
FutuRaM: Unlocking the Raw Material Potential of Europe’s Waste Streams
One of the most compelling examples came from Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). As scientific coordinator of the EU-funded FutuRaM research project, Baldé helped deliver one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of critical raw materials contained in Europe’s waste streams, including electronic waste and mining residues.
According to the study, improved recovery systems could enable Europe to reclaim between 4.1 and 5.7 million tonnes of valuable materials annually by 2050. Under an ambitious circular economy scenario, these secondary resources could replace up to 56% of the region’s primary raw material imports.
There was plenty to discover across the exhibition floor.
Despite this potential, significant gaps remain. A substantial share of end-of-life products never enters formal collection and recycling systems. Instead, they are landfilled, incinerated, or leave Europe through difficult-to-track material flows. Additional losses occur due to insufficient sorting and dismantling processes. Rare earth elements contained in permanent magnets, for example, are often recycled together with ferrous material streams instead of being recovered separately.
To better exploit Europe’s “urban mine,” Baldé argued that more comprehensive data and harmonized standards for tracking waste and secondary raw material flows are essential. At the same time, recycling capacity must be expanded, while circularity needs to be integrated into product design from the very beginning.
Thousands of visitors attended the two-day E-Waste World Expo.
The conference track on Metals & Critical Raw Material Recycling also highlighted untapped opportunities. Dr. Britta Bookhagen, Head of Secondary Raw Materials at the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA), together with independent precious metals and recycling expert Christian Hagelüken, focused on one particularly striking example: mobile phones.
An estimated 167 million unused mobile phones and smartphones are currently stored in German households alone. Yet reliable information on what happens to devices after their useful life remains limited. As Bookhagen explained, robust data exists only for products placed on the market, while many discarded phones are exported, remain unused in households, or are disposed of improperly.
The speakers also pointed to an emerging challenge for future recycling technologies. The material composition of mobile phones has changed considerably over time. Older devices generally contain higher concentrations of precious metals, giving them greater intrinsic metal value. Modern smartphones, by contrast, contain larger amounts of niche and critical raw materials such as gallium and rare earth elements, which are considerably more difficult to recover with current technologies.
This creates a strategic dilemma for next-generation recycling processes: they must increasingly target critical raw materials while maintaining the economic viability provided by established precious metal recovery.
Germanium: Significant Potential Still Remains Untapped
Previously overlooked material streams were also the focus of Dr. Christian Hell, Senior Manager for Germanium & Minor Metals at raw materials trader TRADIUM. According to Hell, major obstacles continue to hinder the establishment of an effective circular economy for germanium.
Primary production is heavily concentrated in China, after which the material is frequently processed further in Europe before being incorporated into high-tech applications such as infrared optics in the United States. At the end of their service life, however, these components rarely return to European recycling loops.
To make germanium recycling commercially viable within Europe, Hell argued that both political and market-based incentives are needed. These include improved access to end-of-life products as well as binding offtake commitments within the European Union.
Dr. Christian Hell of TRADIUM GmbH discussed the challenges of germanium recycling.
Numerous panel discussions also explored the policy instruments needed to overcome these barriers and stimulate demand for secondary raw materials, including debates surrounding the EU’s proposed End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation. While opinions differed on the appropriate balance of regulatory measures such as mandatory recycled-content quotas, one conclusion emerged repeatedly: unlocking the full potential of critical raw materials from secondary sources will require much closer collaboration across the entire value chain.
Critical Raw Materials to Receive Even Greater Attention from 2027
The E-Waste World Conference & Expo increasingly provides exactly this platform for collaboration. Not only were conference sessions well attended, but the exhibition floor also facilitated lively exchanges between established technology providers, start-ups, raw materials companies, industrial users, policymakers, and research institutions.
The event has firmly established itself as one of the recycling industry’s leading international meeting points. In 2027, the conference structure will be expanded once again, with Critical Raw Materials becoming a dedicated conference track, separate from the existing Metals programme.
The E-Waste World Conference & Expo will return to Frankfurt in 2027.
Photos: rawmaterials.net
