Substance flow analysis of copper in China

The method of substance flow analysis (abbreviated as SFA) provides a helpful tool for the study of the industrial metabolism of a certain metal within a regional level. In this work the flow of copper in China, 2004, was traced within the STAF model, and the situation of production, consumption and recycling of copper resources in China were introduced. The SFA is performed on copper flows during its 1-year life cycle in detail, and the resource efficiency of China was compared with that of China, 1994 and Europe, 2002. The result reveals that China is becoming a big importer in the international copper market, and the resource efficiency of copper is much lower than that of the developed countries. As the biggest producer and consumer of copper in the world, China is facing a severe depletion of copper resources. How to increase the resource efficiency is a significant issue for copper industry of China. Based on the result, several advices were proposed in the paper, aiming to contribute important reference information for the industrial metabolism and resource management and recycling of copper industry in China.