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Metals

Metals

Metal features throughout commercial and residential interiors — structural steel, aluminium framing and joinery, steel, brass, copper and bronze ironmongery, chromed fittings and furniture and accents. Metals are among the most genuinely circular materials available to specifiers, but that potential is only realised when recycled content, coatings and finishing processes are properly considered at the point of specification.

Facts

  • 96% of steel used in construction and infrastructure in the UK is recovered and recycled (Source: UK Steel)
  • The UK's Steel Strategy (2026) sets a target of 50% UK-made steel, up from around 30% currently, backed by a shift to Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) production using recycled scrap rather than virgin iron ore (Source: UK Government, The UK Steel Strategy).
  • Recycling aluminium uses around 95% less energy than producing it from raw bauxite ore, and aluminium can be recycled indefinitely without losing quality — nearly 75% of all aluminium ever produced is still in use today (Source: International Aluminium Institute / DEFRA).
  • Bauxite mining for virgin aluminium is associated with deforestation, habitat disruption and waterway pollution in producing regions.
  • Community impact. In 2009, a UK High Court ruling found Corby Borough Council negligent in its handling of toxic steelworks waste, the first time a UK civil court linked birth defects to mismanaged industrial waste; more than 100 further cases have since come forward.
     

Key Points

Specify recycled content

If specifying aluminium, use recycled content wherever possible - unlike many materials, aluminium loses no quality through repeated recycling, so there's no functional reason to default to virgin material.

Ask for the percentage of recycled content

And whether it's post-consumer or pre-consumer (factory) recycled material; specify the highest disclosed proportion available.

Coatings

If the metal is coated with any other material, confirm what it is and whether it renders the product incompatible with standard recycling — ask if any contaminant material is confirmed to be below 5% by weight, the general threshold below which recycling remains viable.

Anodising (common on aluminium)

Uses a sulfuric acid electrolytic bath to grow a protective oxide layer on the metal surface. Standard sulfuric acid (Type II) anodising is comparatively low-impact and the anodised layer itself is inert and recyclable, but older chromic acid (Type I) anodising processes carry the same hexavalent chromium concerns as chrome plating below — ask which process was used.

Chrome plating 

Durable and widely specified for fittings and hardware, but the plating process uses hexavalent chromium (Chromium VI), a substance with serious toxicological effects, alongside cadmium and cyanide in some processes. Ask whether chrome plating can be avoided, or whether a trivalent chromium (Chromium III) process — a less hazardous alternative — has been used instead.

Solder

If solder is used in assembly or fixing, confirm whether it contains lead or other heavy metals.

Heavy metals 

Particularly lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium — have severe toxicological effects on human health and, once released into the environment, are persistent and can biomagnify through food chains.  These substances are relevant both to finishing processes (plating, some pigments) and to certain older or lower-grade alloys — ask suppliers to confirm compliance with UK REACH restrictions on heavy metal content.

Supply chain

Ask whether production operations exceed relevant local legislation for pollution prevention, waste management and environmental protection — this is particularly relevant where plating or anodising is carried out overseas under less stringent regulation than the UK.

For virgin aluminium

Ask about the source of bauxite and whether the producer discloses environmental and social safeguards for mining operations.

Cutting, grinding or welding metal

On site can generate metal fume and fine particulates; extraction and appropriate respiratory protection should be used in line with HSE COSHH guidance.

Plating and anodising 

Should only be carried out by facilities with proper effluent treatment, since both processes use hazardous liquid chemicals (acids, cyanide-based solutions in some chrome processes) that require controlled disposal.

Favour mono-material or easily separable metal assemblies 

A chromed steel fitting bonded to a dissimilar substrate is harder to recycle than a plated component that can be mechanically separated.

Confirm take-back or recycling routes exist

For the specific product at end of life, particularly for composite or multi-material metal items.

RESOURCES

Recycling schemes

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