Recycled Scrap Metal Market: Electric Arc Furnace Growth Meets an Export Policy Squeeze

Between 2020 and 2025 the category grew near a 5.4% annual pace as construction and manufacturing activity recovered steadily from pandemic disruption across major economies, before electric arc furnace steel capacity expansion accelerated sharply from 2023 onward as steelmakers pursued lower-emissions production pathways across multiple regions. That recovery pattern held broadly steady across nearly every major producing and consuming region.
The base case carries the market to a 6.2% CAGR on three commercial mechanisms: electric arc furnace steel capacity expansion sustaining ferrous scrap demand across China and India, electronic waste metal recovery scaling as critical minerals policy tightens across major regulated markets, and copper scrap demand growing alongside grid electrification and renewable energy infrastructure build-out across every major economy. Each mechanism reinforces the others across the full forecast horizon. No single mechanism alone would sustain this pace on its own.
The bull case at 7.4% assumes electric arc furnace conversion accelerates faster than currently modelled across Chinese and Indian steel capacity. The bear case at 5.0% assumes export restrictions and trade policy disruption constrain cross-border scrap flows more sharply than expected across the forecast period. Both scenarios hinge on how quickly furnace operators and export markets adjust to policy signals.