The European Commission selected 46 new Strategic Projects across 16 EU member states, including 19 recycling projects and eight focused solely on extraction. The latest selection brings the bloc’s portfolio to 93 Strategic Projects within the EU, alongside 13 previously selected projects in partner countries.
The expanded portfolio reflects the EU’s growing focus on recovering strategic metals from waste alongside developing new mines. Target materials include copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and other critical raw materials used in batteries, electronics, vehicles, industrial equipment and energy infrastructure.
Dutch Projects Focus on Secondary Metals
The Netherlands features prominently in the latest selection, with four projects focused entirely on recycling.
These include Mitsubishi Materials Europe’s 3ECYCLE, which aims to recover copper and other valuable metals from electronic scrap; Back to Battery in Delft, targeting lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite; Myne Circular Metals in Harderwijk, focused on aluminium and copper; and CRITICAL.’s Urban Mining Factory, which will process waste printed circuit boards.
Mitsubishi Materials plans to apply its non-ferrous smelting and recycling technologies to e-scrap and is assessing commercialisation of the Dutch project.
Recycling Projects Across the EU
The latest selection builds on earlier CRMA projects, including Atlantic Copper’s CirCular project in Spain, Fortum’s battery recycling operation in Finland, Elemental’s POLVOLT project in Poland and Orano’s hydrometallurgical battery project in France. Other initiatives target platinum-group metals and rare-earth magnets.
These projects address demand for copper in electrification, lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite in batteries, and rare-earth permanent magnets used in wind turbines, electric motors and defence technologies.
Recycling can return materials from end-of-life products to European manufacturing, complementing primary mineral production and reducing dependence on imported resources.
EU Sets 2030 Recycling Capacity Target
Under the Critical Raw Materials Act, the EU aims to develop recycling capacity equivalent to at least 25% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials by 2030, alongside targets for domestic extraction and processing.
Achieving that objective will require reliable supplies of battery black mass, electronic scrap, printed circuit boards, industrial residues and discarded magnets. Collection networks, feedstock agreements, processing technology and operating scale will be important to developing the sector. The project selections indicate that the EU’s raw-material strategy increasingly includes recovering metals already present in products and industrial waste, alongside investment in conventional mining.
