a number of Asian countries Appro ximately 9 45 million tonnes of waste from electrical and electronic equipment WEEE are generated each year in Europe Only 33 million tons of WEEE are reported as collected and recycled While 15 of Europe s electronics waste equivalent to 750 000 tonnes is e xported each year mostly to A frica and Asia 82 This includes 17 000 containers of illegally e xported ewaste annually from Europe 83 About 4 million endoflife ve hicles or a third of all vehicles are deregistered without a certifcate of destruction each year 84 R oughly 0 5 Mt of EU aluminium scrap is estimated to e xported as a result Figure 16 EU Scrap T rade Source Comtrade 342 P otential for higher levels of metals circularity in the EU T o achieve higher levels of metals recovery and recycling three main target stream jump out First as shown above one of the important elements will be to stem e xports of scrap in particular of scrap that will most lik ely not be recycled or recycled under bad conditions This includes improving EU infrastructure for nonferrous metals scrap and investing in recycling infrastructure for emerging lowcarbon applications e g solar panels and electric 82 Huisman et al 2015 83IMPEL 2018 84European Commission 2017c Figure 15 of primary frst columns and secondary second columns base metals production in total base metals production EU left and the R est of the W orld right Source Sector data For zinc and nick el the fgure only uses the ratio primary and secondary feedstock entering primary refneries while with total zinc production from secondary sources is much higher this includes metal scrap remelting processes in the recycling industry For copper based on Fraunhofer ISI 2013 and OEC D 2018 copper fowcharts Global 2016 EU 2015 Production Aluminium Copper L ead Nick el Zinc Cobalt W orld secondary production 2016 10 10339 2812kt 7407kt 685 kt 878kt 1 79 EU secondary production of global secondary production 3004kt 30 726kt 25 1351 kt 18 200 kt 18 296kt 34 80 43 K t 32 T able 5 W orld and EU Secondary Production 2016 K t I Source W orld Bureau of Metals Europe is a net e xporter for almost all types of base nonferrous metals scrap In 2017 total waste and scrap copper nick el aluminium lead and zinc imports by the EU in 2016 stood at 0 91 Mt while e xports stood at 207 Mt resulting in a trade balance of 1 15Mt see Figure 16 81 However in the case of lead Europe imports more lead waste and scrap than it e xports Asia is the major destination mark et for metals scrap in particular China although fows have started to be diverted to other countries in the wak e of a waste ban imposed b y 79NR not reported globally 80 T onnages refer to remelted zinc only metallic zinc from zinc sheets zinc foundry scrap and galvanizing plant dros s Much larger amounts of zinc are recycled than only the ones that are recovered by remelting scrap metal About 350kt zinc is annually recovered in the EU from EAF dust 81UN Comtrade 2017 Secondary Secondary Primary Primary Nick el Zinc L ead Copper Aluminium 94Mt 65Mt 65Mt R est of the W orld EU 21Mt 50 82 18 50 T otal Zinc L ead Aluminium Nick el Copper 104 0 42 0 91 0 43 207 0 91 0 01 0 02 0 00 0 04 0 04 0 01 0 07 0 01 0 61 0 48 Exports Mt Balance Mt Imports Mt W aste and scrap 1 15 0 06 MET ALS IN A CLIMA TE NEUTRAL EUROPE A 2050 BL UEPRINT 33