Ecological Economics 42 (2002) 5 7
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The contemporary European copper cycle: introduction
An analytical tool coming into increasing use in
industrial ecology is materials flow analysis
(MFA). A related tool is substance flow analysis
(SFA); the distinction is that MFA can address
composite flows all flows related to a city or a
country, for example whereas SFA is directed
toward a specific substance, such as lead or
polyethylene. SFA is thus a component of MFA.
The SFA analysis approach involves choosing a
material for study, identifying the system to be
analyzed (a corporation, a city, a country, the
planet), and then attempting to answer some or
all of the following questions:
How much material enters the system?
How is the material transformed?
How much material escapes from the system to
the environment?
How much material is added to the stock in
use?
How much material is archived in landfills and
other reservoirs?
How much material is recycled?
What trends exist in these flows and stocks?
A major motivation for addressing these ques-
tions is humanitys burgeoning rate of use of
materials. An example, typical of almost any in-
dustrial material, is the use of copper in the last
three centuries, shown in Fig. 1. Integrating the
rate of copper use over time quickly demonstrates
that about 90% of all copper mined and put into
service throughout five millennia of human his-
tory did so during the 20th century, 70% of it in
only the last 50 years. Where is the copper now?
This question can best be addressed by quantify-
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ing the stocks and flows of the material in a
substance flow cycle.
The characterization of cycles has a rich history
in the atmospheric and biogeochemical communi-
ties, which over the past decade or so have pro-
duced increasingly detailed and accurate cycles for
carbon and other elements with strong or domi-
nant natural sources and sinks. In contrast, much
less effort has been expended on materials whose
cycles are dominated by anthropogenic activity.
This is an important challenge to address, as the
information provided by such exercises will be
useful in discussions related to resource availabil-
ity, long-term environmental change, and public
policy. In the few cases thus far where anthropo-
genic cycle analysis has been conducted, powerful
results have emerged:
The global lead SFA of Thomas and Spiro
(1994) showed the magnitudes of toxic, but
highly recycled batteries, and of less toxic, but
unrecycled paint and ammunition.
The US mercury SFA of Ayres (1997) showed
that large quantities of mercury used in chlo-
rine production are apparently in storage in
industrial holding ponds.
The global nitrogen SFA of Kinzig and So-
colow (1994) showed that anthropogenic mobi-
lization of atmospheric nitrogen now exceeds
natural flows.
The cadmium SFA of Stigliani et al. (1994) for
the Rhine Basin, demonstrating that reason-
able changes in soil acidity could result in
unhealthy human cadmium intake rates.
6 Introduction
The Dutch heavy metals SFA of Van der Voet
et al. (2000) emphasized the losses that result
from trace concentrations in fodder and
fertilizer.
The country-level MFA of Matthews et al.
(2000) demonstrated the major additions to
embedded stock that occur in country after
country.
Despite these successes, there is much left to do.
Cycles dominated by anthropogenic activity, espe-
cially those of the metals, are highly dynamic,
with many of the flows incompletely character-
ized. The extant studies of the anthropogenic
cycles have revealed much useful information, but
are clearly preliminary.
The four papers that follow demonstrate some
of the opportunities afforded by increasingly de-
tailed analyses of anthropogenic cycles. They arise
from the Stocks and Flows (STAF) Project at the
Center for Industrial Ecology, Yale University.
This project, supported principally by the US
National Science Foundation, seeks to develop
comprehensive cycles for important technological
Fig. 1. The global rate of copper consumption during the 18 20th centuries. The data are from World Bureau of Metal Statistics
(1910 2000) and Craig (1998).
resources at various spatial and temporal scales.
The first product of these efforts is a detailed cycle
for contemporary copper flows in Europe. Paper I
(Graedel et al., 2002) describes the components of
the cycle (some 30 reservoirs) and the methods
used for determination of the flows that connect
the reservoirs. The cycle itself is presented in
Paper II (Spatari et al., 2002). Among the conclu-
sions are that the recycling of copper is approxi-
mately equivalent to the rate of loss to the
environment, and that additions to stock are sub-
stantial. Import and export flows are important
components.
The flows of copper to various end-of-life reser-
voirs are described in Paper III (Bertram et al.,
2002). Seven types of waste are identified,
quantified, and discussed. The importance to this
stage of the copper cycle of waste from electrical
and electronic equipment is a particularly interest-
ing finding.
Finally, the emerging technique of statistical
entropy analysis is used in Paper IV by Rech-
berger and Graedel (2002) to study the European
 Introduction
copper cycle from the viewpoint of the concentra-
tion or dissipation of copper at different points in
the life cycle. A central result from the policy
standpoint is that the system as a whole neither
concentrates nor dissipates the overall quantity of
copper significantly.
Overall, it is obvious from the four papers that
continental scale cycles provide much information
of potential interest to the science and policy
communities. Nonetheless, an understanding of
the current cycle in one continent clearly does not
allow conclusions to be drawn concerning the
copper cycle at other spatial or temporal scales.
Those aspects of the cycle will become apparent as
the STAF project and complementary efforts of
others move forward.
Construction of cycles of anthropogenically con-
trolled materials is limited at present by data
scarcity, resulting in some cases from the propri-
etary nature of the information, in others by the
simple lack of measurements. The proposal for
national materials budgets (Matthews et al., 2000)
may alleviate some of these difficulties in the
future. In any case, well-quantified materials cycles
will be needed if we are to form sound policies
related to production, consumption, and recycling.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the US National
Science Foundation under grant BES-9818788.
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T.E. Graedel
Center for Industrial Ecology,
School of Forestry and En6ironmental Studies,
Yale Uni6ersity, New Ha6en, CT 06511, USA
E-mail: thomas.graedel@yale.edu