Statistical analysis of metal scrap generation: the case of aluminium in Germany

The recovery of metal scrap for recycling contributes to the supply of many of the key metals used in our society. Recycling provides environmental benefits in terms of energy and landfill savings, reduced volumes of waste, and reduced emissions. In this paper several models for estimating the potential arising of scrap from discarded metal-containing products are developed. The proposed models assume a categorisation of products by end uses, and are based on a probabilistic representation of the service life of products in each end use category. This statistical approach is applied to the German aluminium market. The performance of the statistical models is compared to commonly used approaches that assume a fixed lifetime for aluminium-containing products. The results obtained suggest that the new models yield better estimates than the fixed lifetime procedures, and therefore can be of assistance to decision makers in secondary and primary industries. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.