Recycling Old Copper Wires Could Be Worth Billions For Telcos

Increasingly redundant copper wires may be worth over $7 billion to telecommunications firms, should they take the trouble to recycle them. From a report: The estimate comes from British engineering company TXO, which claims there's up to 800,000 metric tons of copper wiring that could be harvested in the next ten years. TXO claims over a dozen telcos are investigating extracting copper wires from old networks to sell on the open market. The need for copper wiring is declining as carriers adopt fiber optics, which have superior carrying capacity -- one upcoming fiber technology is expected to increase the data capacity of undersea cables by 12 times. While repurposing old stuff isn't unusual, recycling copper can be particularly valuable as the conductive metal is a crucial material for things like solar panels and batteries, which rely on old-school electrical wiring. A 2022 report from S&P Global estimated demand for copper would double by 2035 -- from 25 million metric tons in 2022 to 50 million -- and since the copper mining industry reportedly won't be able to keep up with demand, that means higher prices. Copper is already 50 percent more expensive since the COVID-19 pandemic, and prices will likely continue to increase.

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