The Group’s recycling centre is located in Lünen in North-Rhine Westphalia. The procurement activities of the Recycling business unit are organised from there. These are supported by a widely spread network of purchase agencies.

Copper has been recycled at the Lünen site since 1916 – until 1999 by Hüttenwerke Kayser AG. After the amalgamation and integration of the works in the Aurubis Group, the smelter sector was modernised in 2000 and the recycling of complex secondary raw materials expanded. Today, our recycling centre is equipped with special plants to prepare material and with the Kayser Recycling System (KRS), an environmentally friendly facility for smelting and enriching nonferrous metals and precious metals. In 2007 the most modern plant in Europe for sampling electronic scrap was commissioned in Lunen, in which precious metal-bearing electronic components, such as plug connectors, printed circuit boards and microprocessors are sampled and crushed. An anode furnace or a anode furnace plant for the production of copper anodes and a 220,000 t tankhouse for the production of copper cathodes complete the production site.

Copper recycling is also performed at the Group’s headquarters in Hamburg, where copper production is mainly based on the processing of copper concentrates. However, copper scrap is also processed there. In addition, Aurubis treats metal-bearing intermediates, high precious-metal bearing raw materials and other materials in a secondary smelter.

Copper scrap is also treated at the Aurubis' sites in Olen and Pirdop.

As a certified specialised waste management company, E.R.N. GmbH in Hamburg operates diversified shredder facilities in order to extract non-ferrous metal and precious metal fractions from previously dismantled end-of-life electric and electronic equipment. These are supplied to the steel and aluminium industry as well as within the Group, to the copper smelter operations in Hamburg and Lünen.

CABLO GmbH in Fehrbellin, not far from Berlin, has specialised in the recycling of copper and aluminium cable scrap and produces high-grade metal granules in accordance with customer specifications. Plastic pellets are produced from cable insulation.