Recent earnings updates from Aurubis, Umicore and Sims Limited suggest that parts of the downstream metals and electronics recycling market remain comparatively healthy heading into the remainder of 2026. The companies cited supportive precious-metal and non-ferrous pricing, strong recycling activity levels, and continued demand for high-value secondary materials, even as they warned of ongoing pressure from feedstock tightness and volatile treatment charges.
1 In the News
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Raised Aurubis guidance sends positive signal for circuit board and metals recovery markets
Aurubis raised its full-year earnings outlook after stronger second-quarter results driven in part by higher returns from recycling materials and precious metals. The company’s performance and ongoing recycling-capacity expansion projects in Germany and the U.S. are being closely watched by electronics recyclers and ITAD firms as indicators of downstream demand for complex e-scrap and recovered metals.
Q1 earnings confirm a wave of decommissioning work ahead for ITAD
The current earnings season shows continued momentum in the tech sector with positive implications on the ITAD sector. The pattern that emerged in prior quarters continued through April, with four major technology companies reporting results that reinforce the case for rising ITAD volumes.
Iron Mountain puts ITAD at the center of its growth story, but exposures to component prices and hyperscale demand could test it
Iron Mountain's first-quarter results look exceptional on the surface, and in many respects they are. But a closer...
Apple leads on inputs, faces questions on ITAD
Apple’s latest environmental milestone, a claim that 30% of the material in all products it shipped in 2025 was...
Data Security: Windows AI Recall is pushing data destruction upstream
Every Copilot+ PC that arrives at an ITAD dock this year is potentially carrying something that didn’t exist on a...
Secondary Market: Intel boosts margins by selling what it used to scrap
On April 27, Resource Recycling reported on Intel’s latest earnings call. But the company’s results also contained a...
Corporate News: Peters-Michaud named CEO, Houghton chair of Sage Sustainable Electronics
Sage Sustainable Electronics, the Closed Loop Partners–backed IT asset disposition (ITAD) company that has rolled up...
New Tech: Can modular metals recovery challenge the smelter model?
A UK-based startup is testing a different approach to extracting metals from electronic scrap, one that could...
Markets/Corporate: What Intel’s blockbuster quarter means for ITAD
Intel’s first-quarter 2026 earnings report landed with a force few on Wall Street anticipated. Revenue came in at...
Markets: The whitebox blind spot in PC recycling
There’s a growing segment of the PC market that doesn’t show up in shipment data and in market share reports, and...
Markets: PC shipments grew in Q1, but questions remain
Two closely watched PC market reports released in April painted what looked like an encouraging picture for the device...
Analyst Opinion: The independent ITAD at a crossroads
The US independent ITAD sector is in the middle of a shift that most participants are experiencing in fragments rather...
Markets: Less premium smartphone inventory is reaching recyclers
Assurant’s latest mobile trade-in data shows that the best smartphones are being pulled into reuse and refurbishment...
General: Bloom ESG and e-Stewards roll out critical metals metric
Bloom ESG and e-Stewards have added a critical metals conservation metric to their jointly developed Environmental...
Markets: Wearables are coming and ITAD isn’t ready
Over 600 million wearables shipped last year, representing the equivalent of smartphone-scale volume. And unlike...
Critical Minerals: Tungsten scrap export controls draw industry attention
A coalition of industries and businesses that rely on tungsten is urging the U.S. Department of Commerce to consider...
Less premium smartphone inventory is reaching recyclers
Assurant’s latest mobile trade-in data shows that the best smartphones are being pulled into reuse and refurbishment...