Against the backdrop of further advancement of China’s “Dual Carbon” strategy, vigorously developing the circular economy and improving the resource recycling system have become critical measures for China to achieve green transition and safeguard the security of industrial and supply chains. As a core pillar of the circular economy, the secondary metals industry shoulders multiple missions of the times: reducing reliance on imported primary mineral resources, advancing industrial energy conservation and carbon emission reduction, cutting pollutant discharges, consolidating the foundation of national resource security, and facilitating green and low-carbon development across the whole society.
China is already the world’s largest producer and consumer of secondary metals. The volume of recycled resources continues to expand, process equipment is being upgraded at an accelerating pace, and industrial agglomeration effects are gradually emerging. Meanwhile, the sector still faces practical challenges, including insufficient standardization of the front-end recycling system, bottlenecks in core technologies for sophisticated sorting, limited scenarios for high-value application of recycled products, pending rollout of detailed supporting policies, and poor alignment between domestic and international standard systems. Numerous pain points remain to be addressed to realize high-quality industrial development. Against this backdrop, South China, with its mature industrial foundation and complete trading and circulation system, has evolved into a pivotal hub for domestic and international secondary metal feedstock flows and plays an indispensable role in the global secondary metals supply chain.
