When introducing a new control paradigm in industry or society one has to accept that it is an evolutionary process where people, methods and processes must develop simultaneously, and this takes time. The recycling of material has been studied intensely for the last ten years using different approaches to material flow analyses, MFAs. They have given a good view of the magnitude of material flows but their use has been limited by lack of relevant data. In the case of recycling, data must be acquired from the practitioners of the trade and in order to get it, the value of the output for them and for society must be proved and visualized. This paper is based on a MFA model developed at KTH for steel flows in Sweden (part of the Swedish environmental research program, the “Steel-Eco-Cycle”). The aim of the work reported on here was to initiate the process of motivating better sampling of data in industry and society for performing MFAs. The KTH model is based on a product-to-product approach for steel, describing the recycling machine. Data is presented in a simplified model for Sweden with total figures and figures per capita. Areas where improvements can be made are identified and ways to “lubricate” the recycling machine are discussed. The main idea is to provide a way of describing flows that can be of use to recyclers and steel producers and form a basis for discussions on improvements. Finally, the underlying model is briefly described and the uncertainties of data are discussed.

Materials have been central to the development of civilization, as they constitute thebackbone of our society and of our technology, as all things are made of materials and allof them are made by tools mainly made of metals, and especially iron and steel. In modernlanguage, they have become central to the sustainability of our society. Speaking about ormeasuring this relationship, however, is complex. Life Cycle Thinking is an important toolfor doing this, but it was not developed with materials in mind and it focuses only onthat small part of sustainability related to environmental impacts. Economic and societalissues require other methodologies and all these complementary visions have to beaggregated in order to report properly on sustainability matters. To advance towards sucha new tool, called the New Metrics, an Initiative called SOVAMAT was launched 10 years agoand a Community has shaped up, binging together academics from a broad array of hard andsoft disciplines, materials producers from metals to plastics, glass, paper/cardboard,concrete, carbons, wood, etc., and materials users, including meta-users who work onecodesign, for example. The agenda of the Initiative is moving forward, improving existingmethodology, extending it and aggregating various tools towards the final target of theNew Metrics. The SOVAMAT Community meets regularly in annual seminars called Society andMaterials or SAM. This paper explains the questions addressed by the Initiative and someof its early successes.

In recent years, lithium received increasing attention as lithium-ion rechargeablebatteries appear to be the most promising candidates for future electric vehicles. Severalstudies forecast a strong increase in demand most likely brought about with theimplementation of lithium-ion batteries in the automotive sector. Thus, the availabilityof lithium could be an important constraint for this emerging technology. Concerninglithium availability the future developments of supply and demand as well as the recyclingpotential play major roles. In respect of recycling it has to be distinguished in generalbetween dissipative and non-dissipative applications. As several studies (e.g. 1 G. Angerer, F. Marscheider-Weidemann, M. Wendl, M.Wietschel, Raw materials for emerging technologies: the case of lithium, Karlsuhe 2009)predict lithium recycling to play an important role for future lithium availability therecyclability of lithium in different applications has to be analysed for estimating thecontribution of lithium recycling to future supply.